In a Polish shtetl in 1932, according to this Werner Herzog English-language adaptation of a true story, a Jewish blacksmith named Zishe Breitbart (Jouko Ahola) set out for Berlin to seek his destiny. He was tremendously strong, and so, he thought, God must have a purpose for him. Of course, in Berlin at that time another strong man, Adolf Hitler, was seeking his destiny also, and the link between the two was Erik Jan Hanussen (Tim Roth), a charismatic mountebank and the proprietor of Hanussen’s Palace of the Occult, a cabaret popular with the growing Nazi movement. There Hanussen would dazzle the Brown Shirt crowd with his mental powers of clairvoyance while Breitbart amazed them with his physical feats of strength.

Herzog’s first dramatic feature since Cobra Verde (1988) conjures the meditative pacing and visual beauty of Aguirre der Zorn Gottes and Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle ("The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser"), though it’s toned down some for broader consumption. The distinctive Herzogian touches include the abrupt, surreal images, such as an army of crabs crossing a railroad track, and the mannered acting. Ahola is not an actor but a real strong man (twice winner of the title "World’s Strongest Man"), and his performance has the purity of a sleepwalker’s, in touching contrast to Roth’s reptilian hypnotist. Invincible’s lulling rhythms and jagged innocence elevate Breitbart into the mythic, a new and doomed Samson, Golem, or Messiah. (133 minutes)