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Kafka (1991)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102181/
Kafka is a mystery thriller 1991 film based on the life and work of writer Franz
Kafka. The film attempted to blur the lines between the surreal and the real, c
reating a Kafkaesque atmosphere thereby. It was directed by Steven Soderbergh, w
ritten by Lem Dobbs, and stars Jeremy Irons in the title role along with Theresa
Russell, Sir Ian Holm, Jeroen Krabb, Joel Grey, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Sir Ale
c Guinness.
Jeremy Irons ... Kafka
Theresa Russell ... Gabriela
Joel Grey ... Burgel
Ian Holm ... Doctor Murnau
Jeroen Krabb ... Bizzlebek
Armin Mueller-Stahl ... Grubach
Alec Guinness ... The Chief Clerk
Brian Glover ... Castle Henchman
Keith Allen ... Assistant Ludwig
Simon McBurney ... Assistant Oscar
Robert Flemyng ... The Keeper of the Files
Matyelok Gibbs ... Concierge
Ion Caramitru ... Solemn Anarchist
Hilde Van Mieghem ... Female Anarchist
Jan Nemejovsky ... Mustachioed Anarchist
Set in the city of Prague of 1919, Kafka tells the tale of an insurance worker w
ho gets involved with an underground group after one of his co-workers is murder
ed. The underground group, responsible for bombings all over town, attempts to t
hwart a secret organization that controls the major events in society. He eventu
ally penetrates the secret organization in order to confront them.
Independent Spirit Awards
1992 Won Independent Spirit Award Best Cinematography Walt Lloyd
1992 Nominated Independent Spirit Award Best Screenplay Lem Dobbs
Although Lem Dobbs follows what James Hawes referred to as the Kafka Myth in his b
ook Excavating Kafka, presenting a solitary, withdrawn figure, rather than the s
ociable and charming figure Kafka apparently was, he combines elements of the au
thor s life with nightmares from his fiction. Kafka did work for an insurance comp
any and wrote through the night. There are hints in the film of his troubled rel
ationship with his father and his inability to commit to a relationship. There a
re allusions to his work most notably in the presence of The Castle, which in Ka
fka s fiction is unknowable, and unreachable, but here reveals its secrets, althou
gh they are fairly banal compared to Kafka s nightmares.
Steven Soderbergh won huge acclaim and the Palme D Or at the Cannes Film Festival f
or his debut movie Sex, Lies and Videotape. Following up such success with his s
econd film was always going to be difficult and making a black and white semi-fi
ctional biopic of Franz Kafka using techniques borrowed from German Expressionis
m is probably asking for a kicking. Kafka was initially released in the US in 19
91, but it would be another three years before it briefly turned up in a handful
of UK cinemas.
Although Kafka is regarded as a miserabilist, his writing is often very funny. T
he masterful short story The Rebuff is barely half a page long, but skewer s the rom
antic longing of both sexes with a perfect aim. The preference for films about,

or based on work by serious writers, and few are taken as seriously as Kafka, is t
hat they be serious. Witness the austere and lifeless version of The Trial (Davi
d Hugh Jones 1993) with the perfectly cast Kyle MacLachlan trapped in a lousy pr
oduction, just as surely as Josef K is trapped by the law. Lem Dobbs script has
plenty of humour and Soderbergh has essentially placed the great novelist in a h
ighbrow zombie film, like The Third Man (Carol Reed 1949) crossed with George Ro
mero. Maybe this seemed incongruous to some critics, but it is closer to the spi
rit of Kafka s work than they realise.