Posted 9:37 pm Friday, December 02, 2011
Werner Herzog's ‘The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser' An Odd, Engrossing Affair
He plays with his toy wooden horse, sitting there on a pile of stale hay. He eats his bread, drinks his water and seems content. He doesn't speak, in fact he seems incapable of doing so. His countenance is that of a child's, except that he is a grown man. He is also tied to the floor of a small, windowless cell.
This is how the story of Kaspar Hauser (Bruno Schleinstein) -- a child in the body of a man -- begins. Kept prisoner in this cell by a mysterious man his entire life, he is one day released but given no reason why he was ever held captive. Unable to speak (save for a scant few words), barely able to walk and able to write only his name, Kaspar is soon abandoned in the town of Nuremberg.
Unable to even perform rudimentary actions such as using a spoon, he becomes something of a curiosity to the townspeople. They huddle around windows and doorways to get a peek at this strange man who was deposited into their lives. A kindly couple takes him in, teaches him how to speak and other simple tasks such as identifying parts of his body. But soon the town leaders declare him a burden on the town's finances and sell him to the circus, charging money for gawkers to come and gaze at this enigma of a man.
However, professor Daumer (Walter Landengast) soon takes pity on Kaspar and takes him under his wing, teaching him, civilizing him, until Kaspar is largely able to function on his own. He can read and write. His brain takes unusual approaches to things such as logic and religion (he thinks that an apple which hits the ground and bounces over a man's shoe was due to a decision made by the apple itself), but by and large he becomes a largely functional adult at last, thanks to the kindness of Herr Daumer.
This is such an odd, fascinating and emotionally touching movie. The highlight, obviously, is watching Schleinstein as Kaspar, and what a fantastic performance it is. Method actors often go to great lengths to immerse themselves into a character, but as I was watching, there seemed to be very little dividing Schleinstein from his character. Turns out I was right, as not only did Schleinstein never change out of his costume (even after shooting would wrap each day) and would even sleep on the floor near the door of his hotel room. But even parts of Schleinstein's life, sadly, informed his performance as he was frequently beaten as a child and spent numerous years inside mental institutions. The result is a performance that is both impressive and heartbreaking. There is one scene in particular that is truly heart-wrenching, where Kaspar is listening to a blind man play the piano. This may well be the first time he's ever heard music and he is unable to process the emotion welling up inside him. The music, while often off key and bizarre in its composition, still pierces Kaspar's soul, sending tears streaming down his face. It's an incredibly affecting scene and it is at that moment that we get the fullest sense of just how much has been missing from Kaspar's life.
Fascinating still is the fact that the story of Kaspar Hauser is true. The details of his actual life are, of course, a bit different from the film (he died at the supposed age of 21, yet Schleinstein was 41 when he played the role and Kaspar age is never mentioned in the film), but by and large this follows the events of his life rather closely, it seems.
Herzog paints Kaspar's life as a tragedy, because even after his death, Kaspar is still treated as a curiosity. After Kaspar dies from the combination of being stabbed and an enlarged liver, he is immediately dissected and studied. They remove his brain to study it simply so they can report the findings. Herzog never sugarcoats the story, though he does elicit a significant amount of sympathy for Kaspar.
What he doesn't do, however, is sugarcoat the story. Herzog isn't interested in providing us with happy stories. Where most conventional Hollywood productions would try to force in some "he may have been simple, but he was the one who helped teach them!" bit of sappiness into the story, Herzog is content to simply give us the story as it was: an odd and, frankly, heartbreaking tale of a life deprived.
Only two films into this and it's already abundantly clear that Herzog isn't interested in telling stories about people who are even remotely well-adjusted. Herzog deals in the mad, the damaged, the enigmatic. This should only be further emphasized as I watch his next film, "Fitzcarraldo," about a man determined to build an opera house in the middle of a jungle.
I'll run that review next week, followed by "Nosferatu" and "Grizzly Man."
Stewart Smith is the Entertainment Editor for the Tyler Morning Telegraph. Contact him at 903-596-6301 or by e-mail at ssmith@tylerpa per.com.
