One of the most elaborately recorded “feral child” cases is that of the Wild Boy of Aveyron. In the year 1800, after few fruitless attempts to bound him to civilisation, a young boy left the forests of Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance and settled in. The child's primal appearance and lack of speech labeled him an idiot. However, in the era of Enlightenment, the question of nurture versus nature was a pressing one. Studies on Victor began.

“I'm glad that you came home. Do you understand? This is your home. You're no longer a wild boy, even if you're not yet a man.”

– Dr. Itard

Truffaut explores L'enfant sauvage right when the idea of the noble savage seemed to lock on with counterculture. With #Truffaut as Victor's tutor Itard in front of the camera, directly guiding amateur child actor (and “gipsy”) Cargol, the film not only reimagines Victor's fate, but reenacts Western presumed enlightenment over The Other.

Not a film you can be prepared for, Padre padrone. The author, Gavino Ledda, hands a stick – that stick – to the actor who plays his part. There we are, in Sardinia, beautiful Sardinia. A boy in class, learning. His father barges in: the boy must attend the sheep, or else. From that moment on we become that boy Gavino. Life's cruel on the island, but his father, his master, is worse. But that's how it is, there's sheep to herd. When Gavino enlist in the army, he encounters a new world. The precise world of electronics, other people, other sounds, the Italian #language. When he returns home, he finds his father a small man.

“Don't laugh at Gavino. Hands on your desks! Today is Gavino's turn. Tomorrow will be yours.”

– father

In a 1977 New York Times article the Taviani's are cited as seeing Gavino in the same light as #Truffaut's L'Enfant sauvage (1970) and #Herzog's Kaspar Hauser (Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle) (1974). However, the Sardinian boy's outsiderness is not caused by estrangement, but an immense loneliness that cannot be put into words. This is why Ledda's newfound language is such an important tool. It's not a stick, or a fist, or a dead snake. It's the foundation of his Home.