Customer Reviews

Kafka [VHS]

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you like weird movies, this one ranks up there with "Eraserhead", although it's much more...this is one of the most underrated films made, in my opinion. Filmed beautifully on location in Prague, and for the most part in truly magnificent black and white by cinematographer Walt Lloyd, and with a stellar cast of some of the best character actors around, it fascinates me more with each viewing.

It's my favorite Jeremy Irons vehicle...he's absolutely perfect for the part, with his gaunt nervousness, his synchronized facial twitches, and his ability to express deep gloom. Joel Grey is the boss from hell, Armin Mueller-Stahl is great as the police inspector, and other tasty bits of acting come from Theresa Russell, Jeroen Krabbe, Alec Guinness, and Ian Holm.

Another reason for seeing this film is in the hearing of it...the soundtrack by Cliff Martinez using a zither solo is exceptional. Moody, melodic, and unique, it greatly enhances the on screen action.

The story hardly has anything to do with Kafka's actual life, but is inspired from his stories, and has the atmosphere portrayed in them...fear, persecution, distrust of authority, the bewilderment of life itself, and that horrible little scabby laughing man !

'Kafka' is one of the best Sonderbergh films, and i don't really understand why it has been so underrated. This movies manages brilliantly to convey the menacing atmosphere that we sense in Franz Kafka's books, introduncing elements from 'The Trial' and 'The Castle', mostly, in an original fiction work; the actors are fabulous, the cinematographie is faultless, Jeremy Irons is perfect. A wonderful film, and i'm waiting for years for the DVD. Is there any information about the release date?

Steven Soderbergh is such a very peculiar moviemaker that he does not follow any pattern. Each one of his films is one of a kind. And "Kafka" is not an exception. More than a cinebiography of the writer, the movie is a mix of many kafkanian situations, that adds up situations from some of his published work and events of his life.

Jeremy Irons plays the title character, who woks in a insurance company and writes during his spare time. He is a very lonely soul, and he has no family or friends at all, but he doesn't seem to care about it very much. But his life takes a spin when he finds himself in a conspiracy after the disapeareance of a work mate. In order to investigate it he gets more and more involved with a group of rebels.

The film is brillantly phographed in Black & White by Walt Lloyd, but be ready for a surprised in a key sequence. The screenplay smartly mixes up many excerpts from Kafka's writings and thigs thac actually happened to the late writer.It is hard to classify because most of the time it is thiller but it has some philosophical and sci-fi inserts.

As I said, the film alludes to many Kafka's works, but you do not need to have read or even know Kafka in order to enjoy and appreciate the picture. If you know him, you will have much more pleausure when watching the movie and you will get most of the references. If you don't know Kafka, you will probably get excited about him and you will look for reading some of his work and watching the film again afterwards.

"Kafka" is uber-director Steven Soderbergh's finest hour, a mesmerizing, frequently terrifying, always splinteringly beautiful distillation of the paranoid works of Franz Kafka into a two-hour descent into duplicity, delusion, madness, and conspiracy.

Franz Kafka (played precisely and with aplomb by Jeremy Irons, in one of his best roles) is an anonymous, numberless bureaucrat laboring in the stifling confines of his office in a shadow-haunted city somewhere in Eastern Europe (the city Soderbergh uses is Prague, which, with its winding cobbled streets and menacing feudal castle, which Soderbergh develops into a major character in its own right).

Kafka is intellectually curious, though, and through his writing seeks escape from his wearying job as a clerk and the looming, austere tyranny of his lordly superior, the Chief Clerk (played with leonine reserve and typical brilliance by Sir Alec Guiness).

Kafka's work is the stuff of dark conspiratorial nightmare, plots within plots, revolutions brewing and quelled by ranks of faceless secret police, but after he befriends a group of anarchists and revolutionaries led by the mysterious Gabriela (played subtly by Theresa Russell), his life takes a turn for the bizarre, eerily paralleling his literary work, replete with disappearances, mysterious horrible deaths, shadowy night-time pursuits through the streets, and terrible rumors of malign plots hatched in the inaccessible Castle that hulks above the city.

"Kafka" is subversive, insidious, breathtakingly beautiful and deliciously creepy work. It is also Soderbergh's best film, slipping as effortlessly between the real and surreal as it does between its black-and-white and color palettes. Soderbergh assembled a team that worked brilliantly together, including cinematographer Walt Lloyd, Set designer Joanne Woollard, and costume designer Michael Jeffery, to work a feat of cinematic magic.

The acting here is also uniformly seamless, with Irons alternately purringly subservient and winsomely brave; Irons delivers the goods as a man pushed up against the limitations of his courage. Russell shines in her brief but crucial role, Sir Alec Guinness brings a nice touch of Dickensian gloom to the picture, Armin Mueller-Stahl is note perfect as the sinister but befuddled Police Inspector Grubach, Ian Holm calmly psychotic as the evil Doctor Murnau (Holm uses the same line---"you don't belong here, do you?"---in three films: "From Hell", "Brazil", and this movie) and the great Brian Glover psychotically calm as his beetling, murderous hench-thug.

But the standout in "Kafka" is the atmosphere itself, thick with paranoid, horror, and intrigue. This is a movie fraught with secret passages, nitreous oubliettes, forgotten cemeteries, cobbled streets, fog-shrouded squares. All of this is nicely underscored by a haunting soundtrack by Cliff Martinez.

"Kafka" is above all a movie where terror stalks the alleys and haunts of the City, terror as Beautiful as it is horrific, because in life the Nightmarish can also be Beautiful. And be warned: this is a truly frightening, grisly film that does its level best to give you nightmares. Kafka's wild flight from a hideous Laughing Man is the scariest sequence I have ever sweated through.

Not a biography but a stark and luminous journey into the mind of Franz Kafka, the movie is rich and layered with echoes of "Metamorphosis", "In the Penal Colony", "The Castle" and "The Trial". Take a steadying drink, and slip into its dark streets and deep paranoia.

I first saw this film when it was released (dubbed) in Germany. I've since watched it again several times in English, rented from my local Blockbuster's. I pretty much agree with all the other reviewers who liked this film, for pretty much the same reasons. Predictably, the German critics hated this film, getting in a snit about how an authors fiction and life should not be intermingled, etc. I have an MA degree in German Studies with a focus on film. And I say SCREW the German critics--this film was GREAT. Irons brought Franz Kafka to life as a character on screen better than any other actor possibly could have. For me, it was better in the dubbed German version, but also quite fine in English, too. When I used to teach High School German I showed it to my classes as an end-of-the-year treat. They loved it too. And in any case love I Jeremy Irons anyway as an actor...there are few films he has done that I *don't* like. If you liked this film, watch the two versions of "The Trial", too...one starring Kyle McLaughlin of TWIN PEAKS fame, the other, the Orson Welles original...both are good renditions in their own rights.

I discovered this movie by accident and have been devoted to the cause of promoting it ever since. It is rarely found in video stores, but if you can possibly find a copy, rent it and watch it. Make a bootleg copy. Watch it again. Though those who have read Kafka's work will find the movie to be a witty and intelligent synthesis of many of Kafka's stories, those unfamiliar with Kafka's work will enjoy it also. Paranoia, totalitarianism, mind-numbing buerocracy that stifles the individual soul--all of Kafka's great themes are here. This is the best movie there is about Kafka's stories, and though it has achieved little recognition in the eight or nine years since its release, my hope is that by spreading the word about this film, awareness of it will grow. And by the way, Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan Kenobi!) also appears in this movie; that should make it worth watching at least once, even if you're not interested in Kafka.

This movie, switching from black/white to color and back, takes part of various Kafka novels to reconstruct that absurd Central European early twentieth-century which portended doom not just for the Jews, but for all who resisted modernity. Jeremy Irons portrayal seems so real that almost all the other characters appear as foils, propelling the protagonist only toward self-realization--and that only incipiently. Anyone who knows Kafka's works will enjoy unraveling the threaded plots and seeing Irons come to the truth that Kafka himself ultimately tried to escape. Luckily for us, his wishes were not fully realized in death--or this film would not have been possible.

'Kafka' is one of my favorite films, second only to 'Eraserhead'. A paranoid and surreal thriller with a bravura performance from Jeremy Irons as Kafka. There are many scenes in this movie which I cherish. The delivery of the bomb. Kafka's dialogue with Murnau. The first glimpse of the giant microscope. Kafka's letter to his father, and too many more to mention. This is brilliant film. Don't sit here simply reading these words, go out and see it. It doesn't matter what it takes, in the end, you will love this movie. That is, unless you are a miserabilist, unthinking phillistine. But, I hope not.

..With all the surreal paranoia one might expect, with Irons doing a terrific job as the lonely Kafka working in a large insurance office. Also, Alec Guinness as his mysterious boss in one of his best later roles. The entire movie is beautifully filmed in black and white, until the sci-fi part later turns to color. This movie is worth a 2nd look,which I'll do soon. It's part noir Orson Welles/Carroll Reed (Welles did a version of Kafka's TRAIL, which has its similarities; KAFKA also is reminiscent of this duo's THE THIRD MAN,filmed in a similiar looking Vienna.) Part REDS, with its ardent young revolutionaries, a touch even of Sherlock Holmes,1919 Prague not unlike London with cobbled streets,vast buildings, bridges and a river that could be the Thames. Irons could do a nice job as Holmes, in KAKFA investigating some strange goings on. Throw in the HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME and FRANKENSTEIN, AND YOU HAVE A CLASSIC ,but with originality, fine acting, terrific sets you can be sure this has a haunting beauty all its own...The final brew includes allusions to much of Kafka, including stories like THE TRIAL, THE CASTLE, IN THE PENAL COLONY. If you can find it, don't miss it!

To previous reviewer (Penny Schmitt): Go watch Red Heat or any other movie with Arnold - you will find lots of sense and a straight forward story in there, if this is what you need!
On the matter. Never have I seen anything even close to this movie. This does not mean, there is no movie better than this. This just means that "Kafka" is so incredibly different. It is stylish. Unbelievably accurate play. The sound track is gorgeous (as a matter of fact, I have not succeeded to find this soundtrack for 10 years yet). Cliff Martinez did wonderful job. As well as I know, he had looked for a seventy-something year old man (musician), found him in England and took him to Prague to have him play the cymbals forming amazing film entourage.
This movie is worth to be watched at least for what I've just said. It's a piece of art. Don't miss it.