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Professor Jerry Zaslove introduces our Kafka in the Dark program, followed by Straub-Huillet's acclaimed film of the first, unfinished novel, ?Amerika?. Karl Rossmann (Christian Heinisch), a middle class German, accepts his uncle's offer to come to New York. Upon his arrival, he is immediately presumed guilty until proven innocent, and is soon disabused of any idealistic notion of the classless society. The polar opposite of the expressionist style Orson Welles brings to The Trial, Class Relations is a minimalist, Brechtian film, intent on exposing the economic and power structures that enmesh the characters. In that sense it may be the purest Kafka film yet.

Preceded by the short film: The Metamorphosis of Mr Samsa
Directed by Caroline Leaf // Canada // 1977 // 10 min


Gregor Samsa experiences an unimaginable transformation in Kafka's most famous story. Caroline Leaf brings Kafka's world of alienation and guilt to life using an innovative sand-on-glass technique, sepia-toned imagery, and an imaginative soundtrack. 

Tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis to VIFC/Vancity Theatre members starting at 6pm. Not a member? Only $2, anyone 19 or older can purchase a membership at the door.

Haneke's ingenious, faithful, Kafka adaptation uses long takes, an off-screen narrator, and a fragmentary approach to hold identification at arm's distance. It stars Ulrich Mühe as land surveyor K. Summoned to a remote mountain, K is unable to convince the residents of his position's legitimacy. The more he struggles to gain entrance to the castle (which is never seen in the film), the more obstructive the village's provincial bureaucracy becomes. In the process, though, we begin to wonder about K's own culpability. Made the same year as his breakthrough movie Funny Games, this is the least known of Haneke's films, but for some critics it is the pick of his early work.

Preceded by The Man Who Waited (Tues only)
Director: Theodore Ushev // Canada // 2006 // 8 min

For his entire life, a man has waited outside a closed door. What lies behind? The truth he seeks or another door? Featuring stark animation and a powerful expressionist line, the film illustrates a fruitless and absurd quest for truth. This timeless story is enriched with the mesmerizing music of Arvo Pärt.

Iranian-American multimedia artist Shoja Azari adapts three Kafka stories ("The Married Couple", "In the Penal Colony", "A Fratricide") in his first feature film. Shot in stark black and white, the film succeeds in conveying Kafka's often twisted sense of humour. Azari also makes the unconventional choice to recast the same actors in all three stories, blurring the boundaries between each segment's distinct cinematic space. In the face of such downbeat events as salesmen probing a man on his deathbed, Azari's sly wit overcomes the potentially devastating impact of these provocative images. (Harvard Film Archives)

Soderbergh's neglected second film (after sex, lies and videotape) is less about Kafka than it is about the viral idea of the Kafkaesque. Set in Prague in 1919, and shot – as almost all Kafka movies seem to be – in black and white, it's the story of a diligent clerk, Franz Kafka (played with cadaverous acumen by Jeremy Irons) who toils away anonymously in the Workers and Accident insurance company, until the day a coworker disappears. His investigation leads Kafka into a shadowy world of anarchist revolutionaries and authoritarian machinations. Lem Dobbs' script playfully integrates key elements from Kafka's fiction – you'll spot references to “Metamorphosis”, “The Castle” and “The Trial” – but he's equally interested in the German Expressionist horror films that emerged in this same period, movies like The Golem, Dr Mabuse, Nosferatu, and Metropolis.

Invited to make a film from any literary work in the public domain, Welles chose Kafka's novel about Joseph K, who wakes up one morning to find himself under arrest for a crime that no one ever defines. Welles' take on the story is bold and contentious: "He's guilty as sin!" he told his star, the jittery Anthony Perkins. He also considered it a comedy, an interpretation audiences at the time were uncomfortable with, but which makes a lot more sense today. The film is an expressionist nightmare, arguably Welles' most fully realised and coherent after Citizen Kane.