Das Schloß

The protagonist is called to a castle somewhere to do some work as a land surveyor. A small village is outside the castle, which is where he stays while attempting to make contact with various officials attached to the castle in some way, so he might know just what he is supposed to do.

It is winter. The landscape is snow covered. The castle, massive and forbidding, dominates the top of the hill. The seat of government is supposedly in the castle. Various officials and government workers of varying descriptions are around and about. The land surveyor asks questions, official procedures are described, leading to more questions...

This 1968 effort by Maximilian Schell to put Franz Kafka's novel on film is for me one of the pinnacles of cinematic achievement. This is a film where I think it would be impossible to write spoilers into a review. This is very far away from most films in style, narrative and delivery. It is not perhaps accessible to everyone, hence the decidedly negative reviews also found here. But it blows me away not for being so different, but for being so so true, so prescient.

Franz Kafka died without finishing the book but that makes no difference; the story is never-ending. The whole story is about the efforts of a professional man, who has been hired to work in the castle, to actually get in. The bureaucracy in the adjacent village must be dealt with before he can enter but it is wholly without any ambition to succeed at anything. This is an essay on futility and frustration but it is totally engrossing. The film is similar in nature to Johnny Depp's Dead Man, except that he is faced with anarchy rather than bureaucracy.

I was really lucky to find and see this movie.It has proved to me that as the art of cinema is followed by stars,awards,promotional work and glamourous appearances there are also "hidden diamonds"."Das scloss" until this time is my greatest example of this meaning.Besides M.Schell and the famous Kafka's "Castle" all the other members of this production are unknown and without any career highlights.(R.Noelte seems to me like..a ghost with one brilliant film and no other appearance,at all,in movie making.From the beginning of this film you feel that the atmosphere is covered with mystery.A kind of mystery absolutely different than the types you can find in classic mystery movies.An enigmatic atmosphere that becomes out from the magnificent music score,the great photography,especially at the snow scenes,the short phrases from Schell,the bureaucracy that paralyzes every desire that "k" has and every action he does in order to be a member of the castle.But most of all this film shows the unexplained suspicion that is created in a group of people who have their own rules and beliefs and they cannot accept in our society any other person.Also shows the man,the lonely person who is frustrated by other people,by fate,shows Kafka. There isn't any end,this story couldn't end.It's just a screaming at the snows,in the place that this story began.Amazing...

When did I see this film? As a new recruit in the IDF, January 1977. Before I even started basic training I was sent to an army Hebrew course to improve my Hebrew. One night the corporal informed us we would get to see a movie, "The Castle." As the movie unfolded in its incomprehensible complexity, most of the soldiers wanted to leave, but the corporal would not let us. So I had to see the entire movie, which has very little plot, and no sense at all.

Why didn't the young man simply leave when he found out how crazy the village was? Why does he insist on staying there? I would have run from this place as if the Hound of Hell was after me.

This is a TV movie, made at a time, when the "Theatre of the Absurd" still managed to entertain people. The TV people probably thought: "The story doesn't make any sense at all, but it is completely absurd. So we are good."

The story: A stranger comes into a village with secretive, hostile and bureaucracy obsessed residents. Everything turns out to be deceptions and lies. Or just utter nonsense. He doesn't achieve anything. Still he is hellbent on staying there.

Watching this screen adaption of Kafka's novel is like reading one of the absurdist plays by Eugène Ionesco. It's a pointless chore done for school. It is bleak, dull and every kind of meaning people attribute to it is completely arbitrary. But it is also a product of its time and not without value. It shows how not to do a screen adaption, especially if you want to create a work that can be enjoyed without knowledge of the source material. 4/10.