Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Awesome Movie

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

It's 1919 Prague. Kafka (Jeremy Irons) is an insignificant insurance worker under the thumb of his arrogant manager Burgel (Joel Grey). His co-worker friend Edward Raban is murdered for a picture of Doctor Murnau (Ian Holm). Inspector Grubach investigates. Kafka gets Raban's promotion. Co-worker Gabriela (Theresa Russell) brings him into an underground group battling a secret controlling organization.It's Steven Soderbergh's next film after his breakout indie 'Sex, Lies, and Videotape'. It certainly shows a maturity of filmmaking. The black and white cinematography looks terrific. It doesn't hurt to have the great Jeremy Irons. I also feel like the movie misses the mark slightly. I want Kafka to be in a web of unknowable bureaucracy with no way out and no reason for his predicament. The movie kind of gives a reason and that takes it down a notch.

Steven Soderbergh's cult "Kafka" is not a biopic of writer Franz Kafka, yet it has references of his works such as "The Castle", passages of his life (where he tells to a friends to burn his manuscripts away without showing his writings to the public) and a main character who happens to be a writer named Kafka. The extremely shy Kafka (Jeremy Irons) works in a bureaucratic place where he also writes to himself a few stories and some letters to his father. In this same place he only has one friend, a guy named Edward Raban who disappeared mysteriously. Kafka starts a strange journey trying to figure out what happened to his friend entering in a dangerous game with some strange figures such as Edward's lover and Kafka's co-worker (Theresa Russell) and her revolutionary friends; a very friendly figure who knows too much (Jeroen Krabbé); Grubach a police inspector (Armin Mueller-Stahl); and some of his own work colleagues such as his new assistants (Keith Allen and Simon McBurney), his estranged boss (Alec Guinness) and the annoying Mr. Burgel (Joel Grey); and at last Dr. Murnau (Ian Holm).In a magnificent performance Jeremy Irons makes of his Kafka a man suffocated by the environment where he lives and the only way to escape of it it's to write stories that reflect his life in an awkward way and/or his life as an "investigator" that took him to darker places that could have been a source of inspiration for his works. The movie goes to tell us that he lived in a bizarre and very surrealistic place with surrealistic figures all around him and they were always trying to watch his next step, what he was doing and Kafka run away from this people, hides his writing works. This is a good thriller material!Soderbergh makes of "Kafka" a good humored film noir that has a great mystery to be solved, the rhythm of the film is intertwined with some slow paced moments where you can pause your brain to solve some of the puzzles, a frantic suspense that goes to complete a surrealistic plot. The final result is a great movie with nothing obvious and it makes good homages to Kafka's work, and homages to another classic films. It is an interesting cross between "The Third Man" and "Brazil", the visual of those two films combined along with the almost colorless Kafka's books are put together in here. Walt Lloyd's cinematography is one of the most interesting and effective work ever made in film history, a photography that goes from black and white to color in a great way, showing these two worlds that seem to distant so each other when in fact they're close enough. In this case you can sense that the colorful world presented in the castle isn't better than the oppressive grey world outside of its dominions, the colors are presented only to tell us a frightening reality that is so shocking that we really want to go back to the black and white world along with Kafka. And as a great mind said one time: "The black and white doesn't lie". Unnoticed in its time "Kafka" is a cult film that must be revered by everyone and must of all revered by Kafka's fans even though this is not a biographical movie, it's more like a film that reveals more of his persona and an invitation to visually penetrate to his own creations. Or don't you think that we don't live in a Kafkanian nightmare in a Kafkanian world? 10/10

I haven't read everything by Kafka, but I do love those of his novels I have taken in. And I am interested in what Soderbergh directs, though this is the first of them that has really taken me by storm(to be fair, the others are thus far limited to Erin Brockovich, Solaris and Ocean's Eleven, an unfortunate fact that I am trying to rectify). This has some incredible visuals, and the cinematography and editing are spectacular. The plot is engaging, interesting and develops throughout. This has masterfully done, intense and chilling sequences. The acting is perfect. All of the casting is spot-on, as well. This has astounding atmosphere and mood, and is immensely effective. It is not a Hollywood or mainstream experience, and if you are looking for something light or easy, this isn't it. I suggest that you find out as much as possible about Franz, his life and his written works(if you like them, this is a must-see for you, if you enjoy the medium of film at all), and try to avoid learning anything about the content of this prior to watching it. I recommend this to any and all fans of the author and/or Steven. 7/10

I usually don't care if a movie has a point or not, as long as it's effective or compelling or original, or so bad it's good. But Steven Soderbergh's KAFKA is none of those things. It appears very pointless. The whole thing feels more like a trite exercise by people with too much time on their hands than anything else. The B&W cinematography wasn't even that great. And because the film is hampered with a distracting sense of deja vu (many elements in it have already been explored in several other movies, like BRAZIL), well, the whole thing ended up being dull, derivative and pointless. The excellent cast is wasted, certainly Theresa Russell, in what basically amounts to a cameo appearance disguised as a role. There's nothing new in KAFKA.