Kafkaesque

Описание: The Trial (1962) - Orson Welles
The Tenant (1976) - Roman Polanski
Eraserhead (1977) - David Lynch
Brazil (1985) - Terry Gilliam
The Double (2013) - Richard Ayoade

These are five films that I think belong together. Despite all their differences, they are kindred works. Just what exactly links them together isn’t immediately obvious but the simplest, most straightforward way to describe it is that they all share affinities with the fiction of Franz Kafka. For example, the protagonists of these films tend to be lonely, alienated men living in malevolent, absurd and nightmarish worlds run by dehumanizing and authoritative bureaucracies. It also might be said that these worlds are manifestations or reflections of the psyches of these central characters.

As an adaptation of one of Kafka’s most well-known novels, Orson Welles’ The Trial is of course inherently Kafkaesque. Its protagonist Josef K. is charged with a crime, the nature of which is never revealed. The main character of The Tenant is similarly persecuted though perhaps only in his own mind. The hero of Brazil wishes to remain unnoticed and obscure but is targeted by the Orwellian state he works for. The Double’s central character has the opposite problem as he is absurdly and systematically rendered a nonperson. Eraserhead is also certainly Kafkaesque. It recalls The Metamorphosis (a story Lynch has long wished to adapt) for the bizarre and grotesque elements that go unremarked upon within the story. David Lynch has said “The one artist that I feel could be my brother is Franz Kafka.”

Kafka is generally thought of as being unrelentingly dark but in fact his stories are in some way fundamentally comic, as argued in David Foster Wallace’s “Laughing with Kafka.” So too are all these films: from the more overtly comic, sometimes Monty Pythonesque Brazil to the nightmarish Eraserhead to the psychological horror of The Tenant.

Of course, Kafka’s influence extends beyond these five films. For example, it could be argued that Martin Scorsese’s After Hours or films by the Coen brothers such as Barton Fink or A Serious Man are meaningfully influenced by Kafka. However, the five films chosen here seem to be especially complementary to one another. Besides highlighting their affinities to Kafka, juxtaposing these films against each other reveals a whole nexus of commonalities on every level of filmmaking (theme, character, production design, sound design, etc.).