Kafka va au cinéma

This almost hour long documentary is an extra on the DVD set Kafka Goes to the Movies, released by Edition Filmmuseum. This disk set includes the surviving films that the writer Franz Kafka wrote about in his journals.

The documentary is a highlights version of the book by the same name written by Hanns Zischler, who also directed this documentary. Using pages from Franz Kafka's journals, Zischler, in both the book and in the documentary, highlights the films Franz Kafka went to see and then wrote about. Most of the films are not well-known ones that have been esteemed by film history, rather they seem to be popular melodramas from the 1910's. I have not yet watched any of these. I started the disk set with this documentary.

In both the documentary and in the book, Zischler pads the work with information not directly related to the movies that Kafka watched. For instance, both the book and the documentary records Kafka's reaction to an awkward visit to a French brothel. This is interesting, but I don't understand how it connects to the movies.

In fact, in both the documentary and in the book, one gets the feeling that Kafka was not much of a film buff. Rather, he comes across as someone who went to the cinema to forget his problems, like many others then and now. In neither the documentary nor the book is Zischler able to show how the movies influenced Kafka as a writer or to illustrate the importance of these films aside from slight biographical notes in the life of one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century.

Does that mean the documentary is not worth watching? No, it is worth a viewing, particularly if one has not read Zischler's book. There are some interesting biographical anecdotes about Kafka and also some good historical film from that time period. One should not expect much enlightenment however. This is a pretty superficial documentary, but one that is fine as a DVD extra.