Kafka

Not very accessible film about supposed parts of the life of Franz Kafka with fantastic distinctive music and great photography. I really think Soderbergh is one of few (Welles, Gilliam, Cronenberg, Roeg maybe) who are able to create something like this. He is one of the most versatile directors of our time. Only his third feature (right after 'Sex, Lies & Videotape') and definitely his best besides Traffic. This film is one of the reasons independent filmmaking is the only way to achieve great cinematic creations. Kafka's twilight and absurd world is really portrayed in an excellent way.

The cinematography by Walt Lloyd is absolutely brilliant. The best of all films from the nineties. It was probably inspired by Brazil (1985), The Third Man (1949) and The Trial (1963). I wish this film was 60 minutes longer. If only to give the cast more time to perform completely. The acting isn't uplifting, but definitely not bad. All the actors had better performances in other movies (Theresa Russell in Track 29, Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers, Jeroen Krabbe in King of the Hill, Ian Holm in Brazil).

10 points out of 10 ;-)

Many filmmakers have often failed when attempting to adapt the work of writer Franz Kafka (most famously Orson Wells), so it comes as quite a surprise to see Steven Soderbergh mixing his life and fiction with fantastic results. The story concerns Kafka (a never better Jeremy Irons) investigating the disappearance of one of his work colleagues. The plot takes Kafka through many of the writer's own works, most notably "The Castle" and "The Trial"...

With his follow up to the cool indie hit Sex, lies and videotape (1989) Soderbergh switches both style and ideas completely, creating an evocative and ethereal world of 1920 Prague, full of shadows and bizarre mutations. He also employs shifts between colour and black and white film stock, to give the film a more dreamlike feel.

Visually it is similar to another film from the same year, Lars Von Trier's Europa (1991), which also was about a man searching for the truth. But Kafka is more accessible, being both a gripping thriller and in some ways a black comedy. But however you choose to look at it, there is no denying Kafka's ability to amaze and enthral.

Much like David Cronenberg's 'Naked Lunch', 'Kafka' attempts to merge a biographical film and a literary adaptation, by combining elements from Franz Kafka's notoriously unfilmable books and stories with details from his real life. The thing is, where Steven Soderbergh's film is an admirable effort at filming Kafka's work, other films by more accomplished directors, made around the same time or several years earlier, managed to capture Kafka's spirit much more successfully without ever mentioning his name or the title of any of his works - Scorsese's 'After Hours', Woody Allen's 'Shadows and Fog', and to a lesser extent Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil' and Joel & Ethan Coen's 'Barton Fink' all achieve Kafka's unique feeling of futility and paranoia, as well as his pitch black sense of humor, while 'Kafka' resembles Kafka's writing mainly on the surface. This is the script's fault more than Soderbergh's, because the film looks great and delivers the dark, weird disconcerting feeling of Kafka's works, but by not delving into the philosophy behind them, by having almost no sense of humor, and by adhering to a pretty straightforward conspiracy plot, it remains little more than an aesthetic illustration of what a Kafka film might look like.

Despite a weak script, the film manages several memorable scenes, mainly thanks to terrific cinematography and a wonderful cast - Jeremy Irons, surprisingly, not being one of the film's standout performance. Rather, it's more minor characters played by Joel Grey, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Keith Allen, Simon McBurney and the great Alec Guinness in his last feature film role that stick to the viewer's mind, and for brief moments they can create the sense of paranoia, of surreal, nightmarish bureaucracy that is at the root of Kafka's writing; again, without the underlying philosophy, there's something unsatisfying about the overall result, and the story keeps distracting from the more interesting aspects. The film is, overall, interesting but frustrating; it's probably worth watching for Kafka fans, but it's not good enough to truly appease them. On the other hand, it may be too confusing for anyone who isn't familiar enough with his work.

Some see this film as a step down from Steven Soderbergh's brilliantly-constructed debut feature, "sex, lies and videotape." I see it as a significant step in his artistic development (even if its commercial and critical failure limited the audiences for his next several films). Certainly no one expected him to follow the low-key, character-driven "sex, lies" with such a complicated, stylized film as "Kafka."

An inspired script by Lem Dobbs and a great cast drive Soderbergh's visually rich film. Besides the leads, of note are Joel Grey as the self-important bureaucrat Burgel, Brian Glover as the menacing Castle Henchman, and Keith Allen and Simon McBurney as Kafka's side-splittingly incompetent "assistants." And Cliff Martinez's score (inspired by "The Third Man") is ingenious.

To call this film underrated would be a severe understatement.

This is a really weird movie. People will instantly recognize that it is an adaptation of Franz Kafka's writing, and that's exactly what it is. It isn't an adaptation of any one book of his, but rather of his writing as a whole. All the Kafka-esquire things you'd expect are here: conspiracy, paranoia, mystery, and the like. What is so amazing that they come together absolutely fantastically. The cinematography is especially ingenious and really captures the mysterious and cryptic look and feel of a Kafka tale. The use of color and B&W is pretty simple, but very effective. In fact the whole movie is pretty simple, there are no spectacular stunts or extraordinary set pieces, just a relentless, nail-biting, suspense as Kafka searches for answers to who murdered his friend. He receives help from a supposed rebel group who talks of a secret order and conspiracy that works from the confines of a mysterious looking building outside of town, but they are soon murdered...so Kafka goes to find the truth for himself. First-rate suspense all the way. 10/10

Rated PG-13: some violence and grim content