Even those who are not familiar with the oeuvre Franz Kafkas should have heard the term “Kafkaesk” who describes an irrational, strange, sometimes surreal situation. For example, you can confidently describe half the work of the Coen brothers (“The Big Lebowski”) as a Kafkaesk-and in a way the word can also be applied to Franz Kafka. Not least because the author born in 1883 died at the age of 40, his work remained narrow and precise information about his life is rare, Kafka remains a mystery to this day. For over 100 years now, literary studies have been trying in vain to give the last answers.
The Polish director Agnieszka Holland (“Green Border”) knows about this difficulty. “Franz K.” On the one hand, on the one hand, often seems like a classic biopic, hooks important life stations and is populated by the well -known friends and beloved Kafkas. But in its best moments, the film breaks the genre in an ambitious manner by putting contradictory memories of contemporary witnesses side by side, letting scenes play in the present and thus questioned Kafka's musalization. In the end, you don't get a clear answer to the question of who was Kafka and how he ticked – in any case you will gain an interesting insight into the nature of one of the most exciting authors of the 20th century.
Who was Franz Kafka (played by Idan Weiss)? This film also does not know the last answer.
Prague, early 20th century. As the son of a Jewish family, Franz Kafka (Idan Weiss) still lives in his parents' house, where his father Hermann (Peter Kurth) rules with a hard hand, while Mother Ottla (Katharina Stark) shows understanding for her sensitive son tendering. He already has literary ambitions, but works for insurance – one of those bureaucratic monstring that he will soon address in his works.
His fun -loving friend Max Brod (Sebastian Schwarz) supports Kafka, takes him into brothels and urges him to overcome his natural shyness. And then there are the women to whom Kafka feels drawn on the one hand, but on the other hand it also frightens him, especially when it comes to making a firm bond. Felice Bauer (Carol Schuler) in particular suffers from this essence, while his great, last dear Milena Jesenská (Jenoféva Boková), after Kafka's early death – tuberculosis made him allegations in 1924.
Even Kafka's great love of Jesenská (Jenoféva Boková) is not always smart from the neurotic, enigmatic writer.
Roughly speaking, every word that Kafka wrote himself come up with around ten million words of interpretation and analyzes. A tourist leader in the Kafka Museum in Prague tries to bring the enormous importance of the writer to a group of students. Agnieszka Holland keeps breaking her classically biographical narrative and suddenly jumps into the present, apparently shows documentary scenes, which illustrate the hype about Kafka, which is increasingly extremely more extreme in his hometown Prague.
In the middle of the city there is a silver bust that turns and symbolically fragmented the author. But while this sculpture actually exists, the Kafka Museum, at least in the form shown in the film, is an invention. It is similar with its strict shape, the stone and concrete rises by chance to the office building, in which Kafka worked for a long time and felt locked up. Elsewhere, Holland shows a tourist group that visits a (also fictitious) quick snack bar called Kafka-Burger-a clever and subtle allusion to Kafka's vegetarian nutrition, which in contrast to his father, which Peter Kurth plays with a thick wamp and Schnäuzer as a typical dominant businessman of the first half of the century, who naturally packs the plate with meat.
No simple answers
The fact that the young, overseless Kafka developed neuroses in this environment does not surprise, but Holland is keeping himself to offer too obvious psychological explanations: Not every adult Macke can finally be attributed exactly to a certain traumatic childhood experience. However, this welcome waiver of concretizations also means that “Franz K.” often feels a little sudden and a prerequisite. Many scenes just seem to be lined up loosely, and with numerous companions you actually have to know beforehand what role they played for Kafka-because Holland and their co-scratch author Marek Epstein do not take the audience.
Instead, they offer approaches at best, keep the figures speak directly into the camera and also make different, contradictory observations about Kafka's beings. This in turn also remains an enigma due to the appropriate neurotic representation of the newcomer Idan Weiss. This may have a little unsatisfactory, but on the other hand, could also be seen as particularly honest and authentic. Just like his works – novels such as “Das Schloss” and “The Process” as well as various short stories, of which “the transformation” should be the best known – with a clear, obvious reading, this filmic Kafka also seems puzzling and mysterious. But that is precisely why it becomes an exciting character.
Conclusion: Director Agnieszka Holland describes Franz Kafka as a puzzling man full of neuroses, whom his friends and lovers did not see through. Especially when it breaks out the conventions of the biographical cinema, surprising moments arise that ultimately make it understandable why the character Kafka does not really become comprehensible.