Being in the world: rules and risk

In the American West, a man named Hat sets out to leave no trace

What does it mean to live an authentic life? This is a question that a man who goes by the name of Hat has had plenty of time to contemplate, since he left his previous identity and a comfortable yet, to him, stifling life behind. After years of a nomadic and occasionally unhoused existence, the short documentary Reset: Hat finds him in a remote stretch of the American West, where he’s built a humble home and settled into a life ‘off the official grid’, severing the cord between his past and present. As it relates to Hat himself, the Swedish filmmaker Jesper Wachtmeister’s short perhaps raises more questions than it answers. Through his subject, however,........

© Aeon