Film

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)

Director: Werner Herzog

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

A film that shares with Aguirre, Wrath of God a fascination with historical manuscripts, an uneasy laughter at human aspiration, and an awe of landscape. 19th century Germany: Kaspar arrives like a time traveller, found standing in a sleepy town square, his origins shrouded in mystery. After learning to talk, he tells of being kept in a cellar and never having seen a human being. The learned confront this enigma with the power of their logic, dissection and annotation, but Kaspar shows up the limitations of such rationalism. He departs as mysteriously as he arrived, stabbed by an unknown assailant, leaving behind a deathbed vision that he knows to be only the beginning of a story, and an enlarged liver and overdeveloped brain for doctors to ponder over. Not the same dizzy folly as Aguirre, but Herzog's similarly long perspective conjures as powerful a picture of man's aimless tracks through an impassive landscape. Stunning. CPea.

---

• 
•