Post by The Narrator Returns on Jun 16, 2013 9:27:02 GMT -6
What were people expecting from Steven Soderbergh after sex, lies, and videotape? Were they expecting another character drama? Were they expecting something something like his third film, King of the Hill (which earned him the best reviews of his career up to that point)? Well, whatever they were expecting, it sure as hell wasn’t Kafka. A follow-up which shares nothing in common with its predecessor besides its director, it was roundly panned by critics (even the positive reviews were more lukewarm than anything, with the only thing consistently being singled out for praise being Soderbergh’s direction), and it bombed at the box office. Only recently has it gotten something of a cult (at least somewhat due to hindsight about Soderbergh’s future directions), and it still hasn’t gotten a DVD release (thankfully, Soderbergh promises a disc release in the future, with the original cut and a Director’s Cut he made while filming Side Effects). It deserves far better than its fate, since it’s a fascinating film.
Jeremy Irons stars as Franz Kafka, the writer of “The Metamorphosis” and The Trial. He works as an insurance clerk, while writing stories on the side. Indeed, Kafka did work in an insurance office, while writing stories for fun. His good friend Eduard Raban has gone missing, and he wants to know what happened to him. On his search for the answer, he becomes entangled with a group of revolutionaries, among whom Eduard was involved with. They include one of Kafka’s co-workers, Gabriela Rossman (Theresa Russell). They believe that Eduard was murdered by the police or the government. But before she and Kafka can investigate further, she disappears into thin air. Meanwhile, Kafka has gotten a new office under the orders of the Chief Clerk (Alec Guinness), with two buffoonish assistants (who steal every scene that they’re in). But Kafka is too distracted to carry on any work, so he tries to get down to the bottom of what happened to Gabriela and Eduard. And the world he enters is quite unlike anything he’s seen, except in his stories...
Soderbergh has shown time and time again that he loves to blend fact and fiction. In Traffic, real-life political figures mingled with fictional ones. K Street took this idea further, as James Carville and Mary Matalin and their fictional aides deal with very real political issues. Full Frontal features many instances of this, including elements from a writer’s real life making appearances in his fiction. And Kafka proves to be the beginning of this obsession. As I said earlier, Kafka really did work as an insurance clerk and a writer on the side, and in the film, he even talks about writing a story about a man who turns into a cockroach. But the rest of the story borrows from Kafka’s works, especially The Trial and The Castle. It’s fitting that the film premiered the same year of Naked Lunch (and not because they both have appearances by Ian Holm), since that film also featured an author having to live his fiction. The film is absolutely dense with Kafka references (like with the castle that looms over life and death, as well as in its satire of bureaucracy, including the great visual joke of Kafka entering the castle through a filing cabinet). But even if you have limited knowledge of his work, you’ll surely still find plenty to enjoy here. There are many homages to The Third Man (including elements in Cliff Martinez’s fantastic score), but what I really thought it felt like was a German Expressionist version of The Wizard of Oz. Except this time, the color world is even more hostile than the black-and-white world.
Grade: A-
Lester Scale: Really Fascinating Film That Gets Better With Age
The Soderbergh Players: Jeroen Krabbé, who would later play Aaron Kurlander’s father in King of the Hill and the target of the Ocean’s gang in Ocean’s Twelve, plays one of Kafka’s allies here. And David Jensen, who would later play Elmo Oxygen in Schizopolis, plays the Laughing Man here, whose role I’ll leave to you to find out.
As with sex, lies and King of the Hill, Soderbergh edited the film himself, but under his own name. Walt Lloyd handled the photography for the second time, after sex, lies, and Cliff Martinez returned for his second score for Soderbergh. And then there’s the writer, Lem Dobbs, who did not like Soderbergh’s treatment of this film, and would later be vocal about his treatment of their second collaboration, The Limey. Thankfully, the third time was the charm, as they got along quite well when making Haywire.
Jeremy Irons stars as Franz Kafka, the writer of “The Metamorphosis” and The Trial. He works as an insurance clerk, while writing stories on the side. Indeed, Kafka did work in an insurance office, while writing stories for fun. His good friend Eduard Raban has gone missing, and he wants to know what happened to him. On his search for the answer, he becomes entangled with a group of revolutionaries, among whom Eduard was involved with. They include one of Kafka’s co-workers, Gabriela Rossman (Theresa Russell). They believe that Eduard was murdered by the police or the government. But before she and Kafka can investigate further, she disappears into thin air. Meanwhile, Kafka has gotten a new office under the orders of the Chief Clerk (Alec Guinness), with two buffoonish assistants (who steal every scene that they’re in). But Kafka is too distracted to carry on any work, so he tries to get down to the bottom of what happened to Gabriela and Eduard. And the world he enters is quite unlike anything he’s seen, except in his stories...
Soderbergh has shown time and time again that he loves to blend fact and fiction. In Traffic, real-life political figures mingled with fictional ones. K Street took this idea further, as James Carville and Mary Matalin and their fictional aides deal with very real political issues. Full Frontal features many instances of this, including elements from a writer’s real life making appearances in his fiction. And Kafka proves to be the beginning of this obsession. As I said earlier, Kafka really did work as an insurance clerk and a writer on the side, and in the film, he even talks about writing a story about a man who turns into a cockroach. But the rest of the story borrows from Kafka’s works, especially The Trial and The Castle. It’s fitting that the film premiered the same year of Naked Lunch (and not because they both have appearances by Ian Holm), since that film also featured an author having to live his fiction. The film is absolutely dense with Kafka references (like with the castle that looms over life and death, as well as in its satire of bureaucracy, including the great visual joke of Kafka entering the castle through a filing cabinet). But even if you have limited knowledge of his work, you’ll surely still find plenty to enjoy here. There are many homages to The Third Man (including elements in Cliff Martinez’s fantastic score), but what I really thought it felt like was a German Expressionist version of The Wizard of Oz. Except this time, the color world is even more hostile than the black-and-white world.
Grade: A-
Lester Scale: Really Fascinating Film That Gets Better With Age
The Soderbergh Players: Jeroen Krabbé, who would later play Aaron Kurlander’s father in King of the Hill and the target of the Ocean’s gang in Ocean’s Twelve, plays one of Kafka’s allies here. And David Jensen, who would later play Elmo Oxygen in Schizopolis, plays the Laughing Man here, whose role I’ll leave to you to find out.
As with sex, lies and King of the Hill, Soderbergh edited the film himself, but under his own name. Walt Lloyd handled the photography for the second time, after sex, lies, and Cliff Martinez returned for his second score for Soderbergh. And then there’s the writer, Lem Dobbs, who did not like Soderbergh’s treatment of this film, and would later be vocal about his treatment of their second collaboration, The Limey. Thankfully, the third time was the charm, as they got along quite well when making Haywire.