Swiss actor Bruno Ganz has achieved international stardom in a number of German films including Herzog's Nosferatu and Hauff's Knife in the Head. In The Inventor, Ganz gives a portrayal of gentleness edged with obsession in the role of Jakob Nussli, who works in a factory in his impoverished Swiss village during World War I. Pacifism keeps him out of the war and ignorant of it as well. An amateur craftsman and inventor, Jakob comes up with a brilliant idea, one which inspires him to quit his job and fills him with the hope of raising his family out of its destitute straits. He enlists his friend Otti, who himself dreams of going to America, to help him build an experimental model of his revolutionary conception: a new type of carriage that will be impervious to the mud, rocks and potholes of his village streets. What Jakob does not know but will soon find out is that, in the far-off war, such a vehicle is already in use. They call it a tank. Jakob's blunder is received without humor by the smug and insular villagers, protective of their status quo and already suspicious of Jakob's passivism and eccentricity.