Werner Herzog's film tells tale of a foundling, a
man-child who without contact with the outside world for his entire
life thus far, struggles to adapt to the breadth of experience
suddenly afforded him. As one of Herzog's factual excursions, the
movie supports the notion that truth is, at times, indeed far
stranger than fiction.
In nineteenth century Germany a fully
grown man, unable to walk unaided, and barely able to talk save one
word and a somewhat garbled phrase is found clutching a letter in a
town square. Taken into custody by the guardians of the state, a
registrar, a police officer and an army man, his name -Kaspar Hauser- is learnt, but very little else. He is slowly habilitated to
life in the community but for a time is unable to explain himself or
his origins as his spoken vocabulary is limited to "Horsey" and "I
want to be a gallant rider, like my father was before me".
Kaspar is taken into the custody of a religious order in
whose almshouse he is housed, clothed and fed. He is educated and
makes rapid progress. We join Kaspar two years later, he can now
speak with relative fluency and is able to articulate his ideas and
emotions, yet he has difficulty reconciling his experiences and
thoughts with the laws and doctrines of his educators. Tragically
his new found freedom and his struggle to understand was not to
last. Kaspar was beaten -in the film by his jailer- and later
stabbed -here by an unknown assailant who signs as M.L.O.. The
latter has fatal consequences.
Herzog wisely discards the
importance of Kaspar's origins and the mystery of his end,
preferring to examine the attempted integration of what must be
perceived as a pure human being into 'civilized' society. The film's
German title translates as "Each Man for Himself and God Against
All", evocative of the futility of mankind's struggle to identify
itself and apply meaning and lexicon to apparently meaningless and
wordless phenomena. As such, science, theology and logic are all
targeted as the titular innocent sends up accepted laws and
theories, with his own unspoilt perspective.
Often cited as
perhaps Herzog's most accessibly poignant and moving film, The
Enigma of Kaspar Hauser is truly emotive in its portrait of humanity
untainted by the conventions of the modern world. Kaspar's unique
perspective of the world around him is touching, his naivety and
inherent vulnerability make for some memorable and intellectually
provocative scenes. For example, whilst in a lesson, designed to
educate Kaspar of the biological process of renewal Kaspar is shown
the difference between the small green apples on the tree and the
large red apples from last year's harvest. Kaspar beseeches that his
pastor lay the apples down, he says they are tired and wish to rest.
No, he is told, the apples are not independent entities, they are
here to do as we wish them to do. He is then shown how an apple,
rolled down the path will stop where the pastor wishes it to stop.
The apple bounces off the path into some long grass. Clever apple,
says Kaspar, it has hidden from you. Frustrated, the pastor tries
again to illustrate his point, this time entailing the help of
another clergyman to put his foot out and halt the apple's progress.
The apple bounces over the clergyman's foot, and Kaspar in delight,
exclaims, "Smart apple! -It jumped over your foot and ran away!".
This is just one of many such scenes which beautifully illustrate
the conflict of a human of utmost purity and innocence rationalizing
the science of a complacent and ultimately arrogant and blinkered
society.
In this vision as in that of so many artists, it is
the blind faith of religion which finds itself the focus of the most
vehement scorn. The zeal and fervor of the priesthood -here
portrayed as clownish and meddlesome buffoons- and their single
minded insistence on Kaspar's acceptance of their doctrine points to
cogent argument against the hypocrisy and ludicrousness of the
precept of creationism. For while Kaspar makes valiant attempts to
understand the laws of science and logic and to appreciate the
beauty of music, he is utterly dumbfounded by the church and its
teachings. In one scene he so distressed by a church service that he
leaves and when asked for a reason he says the sound of everybody
singing is like howling in his ears and when their howling stops the
priest enters the pulpit and begins to howl himself.
A
member of the English aristocracy, one Lord Stanhope, here portrayed
as a caricature of niminy-piminy preciousness, -in fact Stanhope is
a true historical figure who briefly adopted Kaspar and then
rejected him- travels to see Kaspar. His tutor, Prof. Daumer informs
Kaspar that this is a marvelous opportunity for him, to broaden his
horizons. Stanhope arrives with much pomp and effeminate
grandiloquence at the party of a local nobility, the bewildered
Kaspar in tow much like a pet. He is paraded before the attendant
dignitaries as an exotic specimen. "Quite the gentle savage" one
damsel is heard to remark, an explicit nod, no doubt, to Rousseau's
ideal of the 'noble savage', an influential theory at the time of
Kaspar's discovery, and one of which he became a living example. He
was seen by observers to exhibit a natural grace and civility, and
further to embody these qualities with a greater aptitude and less
affectation than the members of the literate society he had entered.
However when asked how he was enjoying his new found liberty, his
renaissance, Kaspar pointedly answers that he preferred life in his
cell.
Kaspar's tenure in this societal 'elite' was yet more
short-lived than his freedom however, in the film Kaspar is
encouraged to perform a piano recital at the aforementioned party,
he gives a rendition of Mozart, somewhat lacking in finesse and
confidence and retires ill. Later discovered by Stanhope, knitting
and having discarded his coat, he is dismissed. The pretentious
Lord, uttering with barely concealed disdain that there appears to
have been a mistake.
As a Werner Herzog film this production
is typically big, and by big I don't mean especially lavish or
opulent nor even epic in the generally accepted understanding of the
term, but rather big in terms of concept, and intellectual scope and
profundity of message. Herzog's is a vision which invariably engages
one on a plethora of planes. The narrative and structural
architecture of his film making plays second fiddle to the emotion
he engenders and the trains of thought he invariably sets in motion
in our minds. An artist who applies the cinematic form as a medium
to convey messages and to help us to think, Herzog says of The
Enigma of Kaspar Hauser that "it is almost an anthropological film"
that "It tries to define what we are as human beings untouched by
any environment, untouched by education as if a pure human being had
fallen from outer space to this planet and come into existence here
fully grown up."
Released in 1974 at the zenith of the New
German Cinema, a movement whose exponents chiefly comprised Herzog,
Wim Wenders and the multi-talented Rainer Werner Fassbinder, one of
the film's greatest strengths is simultaneously its most
controversial and potentially problematic aspect. The casting in the
titular role of Bruno S., himself an ingenue to the world around him
having been confined for some twenty years in children's homes,
prisons and mental hospitals, endows the film with a remarkable
naturalism. Bruno's wide eyed innocence and the stuttering
expostulations with which he attempts to elucidate the thoughts in
his mind seem so real, because they are. Herzog in fact countered
claims that he exploited Bruno by illuminating the plight of
contemporary folk such as Kaspar and indeed Bruno himself who are
misunderstood and mistreated by modern society, thus: "[Bruno] has
been so harmed by the world, like Kaspar, that he will never be
whole. Yet he has still not been corrupted. And certainly not by
me."
In typical Herzog fashion the film's grand themes are
more than complimented by stunning aesthetics. Opening with a dreamy
soft-focus interlude of a rower gliding through the tranquil waters
of a river, a washer woman looks up and stares into the camera. An
expositional text outlines the premise of the film and we are
treated to a breathtaking set-up; long grass receding into the
horizon is blown by a strong breeze and the emergent patterns as it
is blown in rippling waves are mesmerizing and perfectly scored by a
magnificent and moving orchestral accompaniment. Such a montage may
be considered indulgent and pretentious but this is far from the
case with this film. Herzog is very restrained in his stylistic
affectations, for the most part he lets Bruno S. as Kaspar speak for
himself. In more discursive moments, such as in the representations
of Kaspar's dreams of the Caucasus and the Sahara Desert he opts for
a flickering, grainy film stock. An effective device for transposing
the audience into a realm outside of the narrative, to a place where
our imaginations can but wonder, taking us into the mind of Kaspar
Hauser. With its judiciously chosen, indeed, inspired score this is
a place which can emote so much within us. And it is this grasp of
the fundamental possibilities of film making which imbue Herzog's
works with so much of their power.
As a thought provoking
tale of a foundling who struggles to come to terms with a society
too staid to even entertain the most modest of deviation from the
accepted conventions and laws upon which it has been founded, The
Enigma of Kaspar Hauser is engaging and provocative. Do not expect
to be merely entertained by this work, rather expect to have the
basic precepts of your life as you know it questioned. That
entertainment is a quality of lesser virtue than the profound themes
at play should not deter you from the very valuable experience this
film has to offer. It is, in short, required material. A fascinating
portrait of humanity and society and a work about which you will
find yourself thinking for days, even weeks to come.
From Epinions.com
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