The Enigma of Kasper Hauser (Herzog, 1974): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 8.40pm
This screening is part of the Werner Herzog season at BFI Southbank and the film is on an extended run at the cinema. Full details here.
Time Out review:
Where others see freakshows,
Werner Herzog finds poetry and wonder. These days, the German’s best
films are documentaries. Earlier in his career, he made dramas with all
the immediacy and sense of exploration of his later, now more familiar
non-fiction. Based on true events, 1974’s ‘The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser’
begins with the old idea of the wise fool and takes it somewhere more
mysterious and moving. Herzog cast wide-eyed, childlike Bruno S, a
troubled street musician, as Hauser, a young man who appeared in the
town square of Nuremberg in 1828 unable to speak and clutching a
mysterious letter containing his name. After learning to talk, Kaspar
told of being raised in a tiny cellar by an unknown captor. Herzog asks more questions about the people whom Kaspar encounters
than he answers about Kaspar himself, although he’s far from an academic
creation. His experiences over the few years we spend with him – as
polite German society variously treats him as a freak, an experiment and
worthy of care and respect – are full of sadness and intrigue. The
conflict between logic and the unknowable is as fascinating and exciting
for us as it clearly is for Herzog.
Dave Calhoun
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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