What's the most kafkaesque film you've ever seen?

My niggas.

Its like you have no idea who Kafka was

This. A million times this. Also, The Trial.

you better be talking about the 1960s version not the 2000s remake

also i think the vogons in the film version of the hitch hikers' guide to the galaxy were supposed to be kafkaesque

>vogons in the film version of the hitch hikers' guide
thats just every person that works in the public sector, but yeah, they were pretty kafkesque

Never bothered with the 2000s remake.

Eyes Wide Shut is a bit kafkaesque

It's unbelievably bad.
Though Ian McKellin is so good he almost makes you forget whenever he's on screen.

Orson Welles' The Trial

Breakdown is good too, the thriller with Kirk Russell.

>He transforms into a bug so it's kafkaesque

>into a bug
>"The Fly"

pick one

I was actually thinking about this very thing just the other day. Didn't know whether to post in /tv/ or Veeky Forums!

I get what you're saying 2bh but... c'mon, a dumb simple premise shared by two works is a hell of a good place to start.

Also, more substantively, consider the jewishness of both works (that is, the cronenberg movie, leaving aside the source material and earlier pictures) . A atheistic jew (these two labels accurately describe both Kafka and Cronenberg) creates a fictional narrative that involves a jew (Goldblum... was Gregor Samsa/his family Jewish? IIRC the story hardly mentions such) transformed into a bug, /and gradually losing his mental humanity in the process/, to accompany his already-lost bodily humanity. When you actually read the metamorphosis, Gregor eventually has a progressively harder time thinking clearly, thinking as a human thinks, and finds himself becoming more comfortable, at-ease in his new body, until he becomes intolerable to those closest to him, and he dies, to their relief.

As an aside, this danger of becoming too comfortable in a new, alien body is also mentioned as a plot point in the Child's Play movies, particularly the original. "Chucky" is warned that the longer he takes to possess a new body, the harder it will be for him to leave the doll's body. Both of Avatar (and more relevantly here) District 9, which came out within a few months of each other, are further variations on the themes of inhabiting a new body, transforming into a bug against your will.

The first two works are ripe for discussion of deep-seated, Freudian notions of jewish self-hatred, alienation, etc.

>consider the jewishness of both works
now that you mention it, those both works seem to deal with antisemitism

The Game

I'd say it's more Schnitzlerian.

Of course we're talking about the '60s version, which is the only one that exists.

The Kafka adaptation of The Trial with Agent Cooper from Twin Peaks as K

1. A character struggling with an affliction he can't control or understand
2. A character struggling against an edifice he can't control, understand or make real progress with
3. Anxious, sickly, confined, surreal atmosphere/aesthetic

Anything else?

How come nobody mentioned Barton Fink

Universal force against which the individual struggles against is purposely obscure, unexpected and unexplained.

...

...

I thought that would be included in "edifice he...can't...understand", but you're right edifice is too loose a term.

Die Parallelstraße

But sometimes even though the protagonist might not understand, the audience itself does. IMO, the true Kafkaesque movie doesn't explain anything even to the audience, e.g. 'The Fly' is a bad example because we know why Goldblum turned into a giant insect.

True

The Ear (1990)

Criminally underrated film that even quotes from Kafka.

Cause no one here has actually read Kafka or seen good movies.

>literally a movie about a man who turns into a bug

???

Loved this. fucking had me guessing till the last few minutes.

You could argue that The Fly has themes like loneliness and isolation that could in some ways mirror The Metamorphises

Robert Blake was so cool. What ever happened to that guy? ;)

Wasn't he in prison or some shit?

The Machinist. There is no movie that can top it, even the protagonist reads Kafka & Doestoevsky throughout the film.

Orson wells made a flix ,Soderbergh too.
Based on some book

THISS

Not exactly a description of kafkaesque.

Just because it shares several similarities doesn't mean it's kafkaesque though. Yes, it could be argued that similar themes are discussed, but what makes something kafkaesque is largely the way it's executed. In that respect it definitely isn't kafkaesque. The outer, social world isn't an incomprehensible, ingraspable, etc. force that plays with a character who helplessly fights against it in innovative ways. Also lacks so many weird kafkaesque situations, which is dominated by an alien (often bureaucratic, cold) logic. It's definitely not kafkaesque, absolutely not.

Also: the whole Schuld und Strafe is absent. It doesn't simply 'happen' to him, he did it himself, transformed by a machine he built himself. His social relations are also of a completely different nature and way too restricted and simple.

that is a pretty kafkaesque statement