Werner Herzog – A Guide for the Perplexed: Conversations with Paul Cronin

by Paul Cronin

To this day I find the man who reads the letter he takes from his pocket very moving. He was a German who lived in great poverty in Algeria, a former foreign legionnaire who fought on the side of the French against the Algerian revolutionaries, but at one point during the war he had deserted and switched sides. I liked the attitude of the villagers who took care of him; the Muslim world deals with people like this with great dignity. By the time we met him he had basically lost his mind and was carrying a letter that had been written by his mother probably fifteen years before. You can see it’s in tatters; he had kept it under his shirt all this time. He proudly read the letter to us on camera, but I always felt that he wasn’t actually reading it, just inventing something. I think he had forgotten how to read and write. There is great sadness here; it’s obvious he’ll never get home again.