Prague–Director Agnieszka Holland reveals a deeply personal connection to Franz Kafka and his work in a recent interview,detailing her decades-long engagement with the author’s life and literature,including a 1981 television adaptation of The Trial. Holland explained her interpretation of Kafka’s unfinished novel, The Process, asserting that Josef K. is not a stand-in for Kafka himself, but rather a portrayal of Kafka’s father, Hermann, undergoing a conversion during the novel’s events.
Holland discussed the complex relationship between Kafka and his friend Max Brod, who defied Kafka’s request to destroy his manuscripts after his death. She described Brod’s actions as akin to a “widow of a big writer,” sacrificing his own creative identity to become the guardian of Kafka’s legacy. holland also noted brod’s tendency to censor and explain Kafka’s work,writing texts interpreting the motifs within his stories and novels.
The interview touched upon Kafka’s lifelong desire to leave Prague, a move he only made shortly before his death with his partner, dora Diamant.Holland contrasted this with her own experience, stating she has always been “running” but now feels at home in a village in Brittany, while remaining deeply invested in the political situation in her native Poland.
Holland concluded by describing her relationship with Kafka as cyclical, with periods of distance and closeness, ultimately stating, “Now I have my Franz.”