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Rating: "Every man for himself and God against all": this is the terrible warning that Werner Herzog, one of the most visionary and radical living directors, chose as the original title for this film of his from 1974. A title that must have appeared so cryptic to international distributors that they chose to rename it with the name of the protagonist and a hint at the mystery surrounding him, but in which, in reality, the director had condensed his desperate vision of the narrated story.
A story, among other things, inspired by a real case that had made its way across Europe by word of mouth in the first half of the 1800s and, in part (along with other similar stories), had already inspired Truffaut in his "The Wild Child." Kaspar Hauser, a man in his thirties, is found one day in the middle of the central square of a German town, barely able to stand and so unfamiliar with the world that he cannot speak and even walk. In his hand, a letter with his name and a plea to take care of him. Thus, while the film considers the unfolding of Kaspar's life in the spotlight until its tragic end, one wonders what encloses each person within themselves to the point of making God himself an enemy; then the message of this film resonates within the soul, remaining with its powerful humanity explicitly (and one might say evangelically) dedicated to simple souls, clarifying many details in a series of answers, or overarching visions.
And it becomes clear, above all, that communication between man and man is impossible - and between man and God. Throughout the film, Kaspar must learn step by step to come into contact with the world, to react to its stimuli, to interact with his fellow humans, all things that he painstakingly and meticulously achieves, at least in part. But the decisive step, that of sharing one's visions, emotions, and desires, will never be achieved - not only for him, of course, but also for the humanity surrounding him: Kaspar, in fact, will never be able to say who he is and who the mysterious mentor was who first kept him prisoner, then reintroduced him to society and determined his fate; nor will he ever be able to express the wondrous visions of distant lands that present themselves to his eyes (and which Herzog shows in stunning inserts, originally shot in Super8 and then "inflated"), nor fulfill certain inner revelations that bring him closer to God and the otherworldly.
Even the society surrounding him, however, will do no better. For the "rabble," Kaspar is only a sideshow attraction to be amused by (a bit like Tod Browning's Freaks); for the bourgeoisie and nobility, he is a subject to be molded at will and onto which to project their expectations, only to end up despising him when Kaspar reveals his all-too-human limits (like the scene of his piano performance, for example). But Kaspar is also the foreign subject who can represent the danger of exposing the ridiculous: in his presence, the guards, keepers of order, behave despicably, while his straightforward and unadorned dialectic mocks the logical speculations of philosophers, who, rather than admit defeat, prefer to humiliate him. The only way out seems to be the warmth of the family that first welcomes him, their simple gestures as parents with a newborn, although society forces it to lose its purity.
These are, therefore, a series of desperate tableaux that Herzog stages with mastery and all his heart: the choice of the amateur (and problematic) Bruno S. in the role of the protagonist, the painterly use of color, the tracking shots of a Germany that, on the verge of its shocking industrial revolution, reveals itself to be still strongly medieval, the magnificent choice of music (Pachelbel, Orlando di Lasso, but also a touching scene with a Florian Fricke in the role of a blind pianist, so isolated from the rest of the world, and precisely for this reason, prone to ecstasy and visions as incommunicable as Kaspar himself).
In the end, nothing will remain of Kaspar, except for the realization of having witnessed a "scientific case." Thus, of the man who attempted to become a social creature, in the end, not even humanity remains. Certainly a dark perspective, this one from Herzog, but one that undoubtedly makes us resonate with the full force of its sincerity.
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