For many critics, this is still Herzog’s finest film. Bruno S., a nonactor, gives an amazing performance as Kaspar Hauser, who, in the 1820s, suddenly appeared in a small German town, full-grown but seemingly a new-born child, unable to speak and barely able to stand. It is a film that stares straight into the mystery of human existence. “In Herzog the line between fact and fiction is a shifting one. He cares not for accuracy but for effect, for a transcendent ecstasy” (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times).