The Enigma of Kaspar and Truman

Rewatched The Truman Show (1998, Peter Weir) after hearing the Blank Check boys talking about it. A film I already know and love, but always worth revisiting. Watched it over a couple of mornings.

Then, in a slightly accidental double-bill situation, on the eve of the first day I went to Chichester Cinema at New for a screening of The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974, Werner Herzog), which I went into knowing basically nothing about.

Immediately struck by how similar they are:

• Two men raised inside artificial or enclosed worlds

• Both later “released” into society, or something like it

• Both being watched, studied, managed by others

• Both trying to work out what “normal” even means

• Both outsiders learning the rules of a world they didn’t consent to enter

• Both weirdly funny and sad in equal measure

• Both centred on a kind of radical innocence that unsettles the people around them

Watching The Truman Show together with Kaspar Hauser made it feel much stranger than I remembered. Less clever satire, more existential nightmare in pastel colours.

It also made me realise how gentle both films are towards their central characters. They never really mock their innocence, even when everyone around them does.

Anyway, the accidental Truman Burbank / Kaspar Hauser pairing worked surprisingly well.