Agnieszka Holland’s Playful, Moving Kafka Biopic, Franz
Agnieszka Holland’s Franz offers a nuanced and surprisingly playful portrait of the iconic writer, Franz Kafka. The film navigates the complexities of Kafka’s life, from his fraught romantic entanglements to his intellectual pursuits and deeply felt Jewish identity, while acknowledging the paradoxical commercialization of his image in modern-day Prague.
The film thoughtfully depicts moments from Kafka’s life, including his habitual rest spot on a riverbank after swimming – a location significant to the adult Kafka. It also highlights his prolific letter-writing, brought to life by Idan Weiss, whose performance is lauded as a subtle and remarkably accurate portrayal of the author. A scene at the Kafka Museum, featuring a tour guide (Emma Smetana), underscores the sheer volume of critical material about Kafka, which substantially outweighs the weight of his personal papers.
Holland embraces the irony of kafka’s current status as a cultural icon in Prague,showcasing the abundance of Kafka-themed restaurants,statues,tours,and souvenirs. However,Franz strives for a more complete understanding of the man,revealing his intellect,sense of humor – exemplified by a scene where he reads passages from The Trial to an amused audience – and complex emotional life.
A significant portion of the film focuses on Kafka’s turbulent relationships with women. It explores his connection with Felicie bauer (Carol Schuler), a Berlin-based relative of Max Brod to whom he proposed, and the subsequent, bewildering parallel pursuit of Felicie’s friend, Grete Bloch (Gesa Schermuly), documented in a series of letters. The film also portrays his later, more fulfilling relationship with married journalist Milena Jesenska (Jenovefa Bokova).
despite its two-hour-plus runtime, Franz maintains a dynamic pace, aided by Tomasz Naumiuk’s cinematography, which frequently employs both fluid movement and static framing, especially within the Kafka family home. This stylistic choice emphasizes the author’s need for solitude to pursue his writing. The film’s soundscape, composed by Mary Komasa and Antoni Komasa Lazarkiewicz and supplemented by music from Trupa Trupa, serves as a unifying element, connecting the film’s non-linear narrative and lending a contemporary feel.Ultimately,the film’s success rests on Idan Weiss’s compelling performance,capturing Kafka’s intensity,playfulness,and underlying tenderness. Franz also avoids simplistic interpretations of Kafka’s identity, acknowledging his Jewish heritage and Zionist beliefs without pandering to any specific audience. The film acknowledges the tragic fate of much of Kafka’s family in the Holocaust,though this unfolds after his death and is not a central focus.
A tense scene near the film’s conclusion, depicting Max Brod’s narrow escape from a Gestapo officer while carrying Kafka’s manuscripts, powerfully illustrates the rise of fascism – a phenomenon Kafka presaged in his work.Like Kafka’s writings, the film itself offers a “distilled, abstracted meditation on power, the law, control and desire that transcends the banal borders of realism.”