The Fifth Gospel of Kaspar Hauser @ Phantoscope, Cork

I'm delighted to announce that the next Phantoscope presentation at Cork's Triskel Christchurch Cinema will be Alberto Gracia's visionary take on the Kaspar Hauser legend, The Fifth Gospel of Kaspar Hauser (2013). Alberto will be in Cork to present the film but also, more importantly, to shoot a new work.  

6.30pm, Saturday July 23rd.
Full details and ticket bookings here.

The story of Kaspar Hauser, who grew up in dark isolation from humanity, it is provided by a Gallician artist with a radical experimental adaptation that aims to be nothing less than a religious message. Black & white 16mm, without the language of reason, eye to eye with the primaeval puzzle.

The story of Kaspar Hauser, the German 'wild child' who grew up for 16 years in silence and virtually in the dark in a stable with only a wooden horse as company, remains fascinating, also for filmmakers. Werner Herzog did a film on him in 1974. In The Fifth Gospel of Kaspar Hauser, mostly shot in atmospheric black-and-white on 16mm, we see impressions of his life and ‘civilising process’.
On one side there is ubiquitous nature, a world without language, and on the other we see him in the company of several archetypes: a masked, sadomasochistic dwarf; a vamp-like girl; a seaman and a man in a Batman suit (played by the director, Alberto Gracia).

The soundtrack also has a constant tension between the peaceful sounds of nature and ominous music. Gracia divides his ‘gospel’ of Kaspar Hauser into seven chapters. The sixth is an absurdist intermezzo with the archetypal characters' dialogues in intertitles.