Matt Shea
RubySoho
Morgan Bell
Cibbuano
David O'Connell
Mountain Fog
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
November 3rd 2008 23:18
Though it seems like I just finished reviewing the outstanding Herzog/Kinski collection, Umbrella Entertainment decided to push me further down the well with a Werner Herzog Collection, featuring six of his earlier works.
It was with barely restrained fever that I tore open that infernal plastic wrap and, with shaking hands, placed "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser" in my DVD player. As the plucked strings of "Pachelbel's Canon in D Minor" wafted through the air, I was once again transported to the dizzying world of Herzog's cinema.
Perhaps my favourite aspect of a Werner Herzog film is that he has a fascination for real life... while many director's aim to craft stories that seem believable, Herzog sifts through books and oral legends, finding actual events that seem wholly unbelievable.
"The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser" is exactly this - the story of a young man, found standing in the public square in Nuremberg, pale and frightened, clutching a letter in his hand. He was kept for his entire life, chained in a tiny cell, mysteriously fed and taken care of, taught some rudimentary speech, then set free into a world of perplexing alien nature.
It's true - well, the person was real, his story is debatable. The real Kaspar Hauser was accused of being a charlatan, while others suggest that he was a descendant of a royal family, taken away to prevent his ascension.
The additional touch that Herzog gives us, is to bring breathtaking human nature into the story; the part of Kaspar Hauser is played by Bruno Schleinstein, credited as Bruno S., a man that Herzog found working in the street, an illegitimate son of a prostitute who spent his youth in mental institutions. Bruno S. is, in fact, a modern day Kaspar Hauser, removed from the world long enough to realize that he's not a part of it.
While the casting is perfect, Herzog also adds his own touch of tragedy - after the townspeople teach, clean and feed Hauser, after several years of being prodded and examined, then peddled as a curiousity, he reveals that he liked it better in his cell.
Perhaps that's the gravest indication of all... that sense of belonging that we all possess, we grew to develop. Kaspar Hauser, though still a human being, still genetically part of that population, is an alien, and can never be accepted. What hope, then, is there for the rest of the world to get along? How can we ever hope to understand the world, with our inherent bias?
On this, Hauser has another observation, dreaming about a procession of men and women, climbing a mountain, only to find Death waiting at the top.
Acknowledgement: I watched Hauser's struggle on the 42" screen of the 42LG70YD, the latest LCD television from LG.
I say: One of the Herzog classics, loved by audiences and critics.
See it for: The film is all about Bruno S., but the backdrop of this picturesque little German town is a wonderfully compelling reason to travel to Germany.
*this image is from Static Fix
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