Kafka works during the day at an insurance company, where events lead him to discover a mysterious underground society with strange suppressive goals.Kafka works during the day at an insurance company, where events lead him to discover a mysterious underground society with strange suppressive goals.Kafka works during the day at an insurance company, where events lead him to discover a mysterious underground society with strange suppressive goals.
- Awards
- 1 win & 2 nominations
Hilde Van Mieghem
- Female Anarchist
- (as Hilde Van Meighem)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaJust before going to the Castle, Kafka (Jeremy Irons) ask Bizzlebek (Jeroen Krabbé) to burn his manuscripts if he never came back. Bizzlebek replies "such an extraordinary request". This is in reference of the real request Kafka asked his friend Max Brod before dying. Brod couldn't go with the request, and had Kafka's work published.
- GoofsIn Gabriela's house, Inspector Grubach holds a record with a label of the Czech recording company Supraphon. The Supraphon name was first trademarked in 1932, eight years after Kafka's death.
- Quotes
Chief Clerk: Oh, I know you were friendly with that poor fellow, what was his name -
Franz Kafka: Raban... Eduard Raban.
Chief Clerk: Yes, yes, Raban. But he was too like you. Even more like you, perhaps, than you are yourself.
- SoundtracksEddie's Dead (Main Title)
Composed by Cliff Martinez
(p) & © 1992 Virgin Records America, Inc.
distributed by WEA through arrangement with Atlantic Records.
Featured review
Expressionism in Film :- The Divine Kafka {Steven Soderbergh}
Well, I viewed this Soderbergh vignette of the motifs, and fictionalization of some of the facts in the life of K. I must say that although I preferred Daniel Day-Lewis's T.V. rendition in the Insurance Man {1986}, I am a big fan of Jeremy Irons {loved his Cronenberg Dead Ringers "tour de force"} and always find his image arresting. I have a slight reservation about his look in this movie. What was particularly impressive acting-wise was the interaction between Sir Alec Guinness and Irons and later in the climax when the great Ian Holms and Irons battle it out for the heart and mind of Humanity - when Kafka declares "I merely write about Nightmares but you create them" I thought that the whole scenario when Kafka enters the Castle and encounters the labyrinthine corridors, the endless doors, the multitude of bureaucrats, culminating in a finely rendered Hitchcockian chase involving shadows, clocks and a precarious {edge-of-seat} balancing act on a glass-dome - powerful movie muti. I could see the movie clearly in my head over 24 hours later. You need not know anything about Kafka in order to enjoy this movie about an alienated young man who has taken an unambitious clerkship as a result of qualifying as a lawyer and now imagines himself a writer to escape the dreariness of his tasks. His hunger for the catharsis of worldly pleasures leads him to bohemian outlets which in turn leads to more radical connections { where he delivers his quintessential challenge to the writing profession "I don't write for others, I write for myself"}. The "femme fatale" is interestingly portrayed by Theresa Russell, who manages to combine the intellectual virago with a sensual ooze which contrasts well with Kafka's distracted isolation - I found it quite plausible that these two had an attraction for each other. This film offers a variety of content and substance. All that can happen if you give it a viewing is that you might learn more about the "Human Condition" Can that be such a bad thing?
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- Stanley-Becker
- Jan 16, 2011
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Details
Box office
- Budget
- $11,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $1,059,071
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $40,814
- Dec 8, 1991
- Gross worldwide
- $1,059,071
- Runtime1 hour 38 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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