MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological* Despite BROTHERS' coming out at the end of the sixties peplum cycle, it's a decent little flick of its kind. Director/co-writer Roberto Mauri-- best known, perhaps unjustly, for the lively bad movie KONG ISLAND-- possibly took some elements from the 1961 MOLE MEN AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES, such as an underground civilization, visually dominated by a gigantic mill and politically dominated by an immortal queen. However, Mauri didn't just copy from the next student but took his creation in some interesting mythic directions.
In a loosely Greek-seeming domain, Prince Akim (Anthony Steffen) and his fiancee Diana (Ursula Davis) attempt to consecrate their impending nuptials by building a temple to "the gods" near a mountainside, not far from the famed "Waterfall of the Gods." In this endeavor the royal couple are aided by two local strongmen, the titular Brothers Maciste, Elder Maciste (Richard Lloyd) and Younger Maciste (Tony Freeman). The script offers no clue as to why the name Maciste, usually applied to a mysterious hero able to appear in any era he pleases to dispense justice, is used by both of these men. Perhaps both brothers are by-blows of that time-traveling hero, after he made a romantic conquest in that era. However, the attempt to lay the foundations of the new temple-- an activity that archaic peoples often considered a perilous endeavor-- the side of the mountain caves in. This damages the temple and seems to be a bad omen. While the menfolk investigate what look like ancient ruins within the mountain, Akim sends Diana back to her father's palace. (It's a little obscure, but I think the region is within the scope of Diana's kingly father, while Akim is marrying into the family to unite his realm and hers).
However, as Diana drives her chariot back in the company of two guards, all of them are ambushed by men wearing leopard costumes. The attackers kill the guards and drag Diana into the mountain, going in through some different access point. Inside the mountain Diana sees a huge mill being pushed by slaves, more leopard men, and the ruling queen of the domain, Thaliade (Claudie Lange). After some minor chat, Thaliade offers Diana some liquid refreshment. Diana is then drugged into submission, and she's sent back to her father's palace to work Thalaide's will. The brothers follow Diana's trail to the waterfall, and Elder Maciste tells his younger sibling to inform Akim of their progress while he the Elder One enters the mountain through the waterfall. Leopard men attack Maciste and he beats them down, but he's caught in a metal cage whose bars he can't break. A ceiling studded with spikes descends to perforate Elder Maciste's deltoids, but just when the hero's about to collapse from holding off the death-trap, Thalaide turns it off remotely and he simply collapses from the strain. Slightly later Thalaide drugs him and makes Elder Maciste her new consort, which displeases her previous consort, formerly one of the leopard-men.
The mesmerized Diana appears at her dad's palace and uses a drug given her by the queen on Younger Maciste, sending him into a deep sleep. With that hero out of the way, Diana talks her fiancee into holding a parley with the ruler of the underground world, whom she claims speaks for the gods. She sells him a line about building the consecrating temple elsewhere, but this is apparently just a deception to get Akim to enter the queen's underground domain. Meanwhile back in the hidden world, Thaliade sets Elder Maciste to work turning the giant wheel, whose purpose, we later learn, generates a stream of water that confers immortality upon everyone in the hidden world. One of Thaliade's maidservants, Nila, takes a shine to Elder Maciste, gets him alone and makes love to him while expressing her desire to escape this twilight existence and enter the human world once more.
As it happens, this is also what Thaliade wants, though on her own terms. When Prince Akim ventures into her court as instructed by Diana, Thalaide relates her origins. She was once a mortal princess like Diana, but one of the gods spirited her away. She enjoyed her existence in the gods' world for a time, but Venus became jealous of Thaliade's beauty. The gods' solution to this conflict was to create the underground realm for Thaliade to dwell in, along with a huge retinue of maidservants and leopard-costumed guards, all made immortal by the streams of "immortality water" dispensed by the mill. However, for some unspecified reason, Thaliade can escape her velvet prison if she marries Akim-- which she proceeds to bring about, with the mind-controlled Diana coolly observing.
However, back at Diana's palace her father engages a sorceress to bring Younger Maciste out of his sleep-spell. The young hero rides to the waterfall, enters the hidden world and begins thrashing every leopard man he can find. Thaliade must interrupt her wedding, sending the elder brother to fight the younger one. Elder defeats Younger and binds him to the wheel for punishment. However, while Thaliade becomes preoccupied with the wedding once more, Nila steals an antidote, uses it on Elder Maciste and brings him out of his obedient stupor. The two brothers then join in wrecking the kingdom of Thaliade, she dies in one of her own traps, and apparently most of the queen's retinue, evil or not, perishes except for Nila. At the end Akim is reunited with Diana, Elder Maciste gets Nila, and Younger Maciste gets no nookie no how.
INVINCIBLE has some minor story flaws, such as the question of where Thalaide's retinue comes from, and why the guards dress like leopards. But there are some good mythic tropes here, arguably stronger than the ones in MOLE MEN. The emphasis upon the flowing water may remind one of the river Styx in the Greek underworld, though the Styx could confer healing, not immortality. The underground world should remind anyone of the underworld itself, though the denizens have simply put off death rather than actually having died. Most impressively, Thalaide's attempt to take Diana's place by usurping Diana's groom bears some resemblance to the Sumerian myth of Ishtar's descent to the underworld, wherein the goddess of sexual bounty loses her powers when she enters the domain of her sister Ereshkigal. The two narratives are not identical, since Ereshkigal does not have any means or intent to escape her death-realm. But there is a substitution motif in most versions of the Sumerian myth, where Ishtar can only escape her imprisonment if another entity takes her place. In addition, there's a suggestion that Thaliade's from another mortal generation than that of Akim and Diana, so she, more than a goddess might be, signifies a transgression of clan-boundaries; i.e., a "clansgression." Thus, even though INVINCIBLE seems to have fallen through the cracks in the annals of favored peplums, it deserves some serious reconsideration.
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