El castillo

Michael Haneke adapts Kafka's incomplete novel about a land surveyor -- Ulrich Mühe. He's assigned to a small town dominated by a castle, where there lives a very important man named Klamm, whom no one ever sees. Mühe's services are neither needed nor wanted, but the immense and inert bureaucracy of the unnamed country keep him trapped there.... or perhaps, it's hinted, he's using that torpor to his own ends, to remain in a situation where he has no responsibilities, and gets to torment his fellow man and woman.

This was Haneke's breakout year; FUNNY GAMES hit the big screen about the time this hit the small one. Like that movie, this one is funny, but not in the least humorous; everyone suffers, and everyone deserves it. About half of the movie has Udo Samel reading from Kafka's while the action and dialogue go on. His unemotional reading lend a measure of contempt.

A land surveyor,K.,is invited to the Castle to do some work for the Count,but when he arrives at the Village,he finds that nobody is expecting him.K.'s attempts to get into the Castle are as unsuccessful as his attempt to settle into the local village.He is greeted by a compact reluctance from the villagers,who with a systematic inefficiency prevent him from any prospects of even approaching the castle.The harder the stubborn K.,tries,the farther he moves from his goals.The impenetrable,seemingly haphazard but strangulating bureaucracy of the castle hinders the clarification of his social and existential situation.K. remains what he was on the day of his arrival:a stranger who is barely tolerated...Haneke's film version of Kafka's famous unfinished novel is an unusually faithful and highly successful literary adaptation.Kafka is,with his absurd,pessimistic yet still very realistic idea of the world,a sort of soulmate of Haneke's.

Kafka's novel doesn't have much of a story. A movie that tries to tell this strange, deceptive and repetitive tale is bound to frustrate and annoy its audience. As this is a very famous piece of literature, three state-sponsored TV stations from Austra, Germany and France decided to give it another try, as part of the obligations from their - in the mid 1990s still officially relevant - educational mandate.

Haneke's film remains close to the source material, while still staying somewhat watchable, for most of the time. That's not a small achievement. This is a deliberate literary adaptation, a not too obtrusive narrator adds the sound of Kafka's writing, which is an essential feature. The color scheme that's mostly close to black and white, but not everywhere, is an interesting decision. The art direction is okay. The cast is of course top-notch. The storyline is what it is, not great, not annoying, and there is most certainly no deep hidden meaning to discover.

Kafka himself didn't have access to some divine wisdoms and truths. He described a worldview, a sentiment, created a melody that was very influential in the 1950s to 1970s. Haneke's film does the best it can to bring it to the small screen.

Kafka didn't know how to finish his novel. It's been said that he was considering to just kill K. Off. But that would have been a boring cheat, Kafka accepting his own defeat. Therefore his novel stayed "fragmentary" and was published as such two years after his death. This film ends EXACTLY like his script - not the printed book - ends. It's a surprising and funny moment.

Today, of course, the logical ending seems to be obvious: If everything is lies within lies, people pretending to be from the castle are most likely not from the castle. So when K. Finally gets a coach "to the castle" - he ends up in another village. Fixed it. Once you know the melody, it's easy to do a Kafka. 6/10.

I must confess: I've never read a book written by Kafka. But after seeing this (TV) movie I directly started searching up information about him, and yes, also bought the book.

Haneke is incredible when it comes to creating an atmosphere in his movies. Especially when it comes to creating a certain feeling of 'alienation' (it's called 'vervreemding' in my native language). 'Das Weisse Band' is an example of that, but also 'Das Schloss'. The narrator and long black pauses, ...

This film is certainly not for everyone. Maybe for Haneke completists only.

It is based on one of Franz Kafka's three novels, and it can basically be described as a satirization of bureaucracy.

K (Ulrich Mühe - Georg in Funny Games) arrives for a job and is met with resistance. The next day two assistants arrive (one is Artur (Peter from Funny Games). K spends most of his time trying to get into the castle to do the work he was hired to do, but it seems he isn't needed.

He takes up with Frieda (Susanne Lothar - Anna from Funny Games, and the midwife in The White Ribbon).

From here it is surreal and confusing. He bounces from official to official never really getting anywhere.

Haneke and Kafka were made for each other.