Agnieszka Holland’s biopic on Kafka is a rare failure from one of Poland’s greatest filmmakers
Unfortunately, few of Holland’s other ideas actually work. The more the two-hour running time stretched out, the more I asked myself one question: Why? Why is every fifth shot an exaggerated “crash zoom”? Why does a cherry appear above Franz’s lips as he – lying on the ground – peeks up the skirts of a group of girls? Why do we see Franz playing tug-of-war naked in the treatment room, surrounded by men in animal masks? Why is there a joke about Americans, unable to appreciate his genius, ending up in a tourist trap called “Kafka Burgers”? And why are there several anachronistic Polish indie rock songs in the film?