In one of these future moments, we learn that the ratio of words written by Kafka and those written by others about him is approximately one to 10 million. Some of these millions of words were written by Kafka\u2019s friend and literary executor, novelist Max Brod, who rescued much of Kafka\u2019s work. Brod\u2019s Franz Kafka: A Biography<\/i> is apparently a primary source of what we know about Kafka\u2019s life, and he is featured in Holland\u2019s film.<\/p>\n
While Idan Weiss, who plays the tortured writer (and insurance lawyer) has gotten kudos from other reviewers for his performance, Peter Kurth, who plays Hermann Kafka, Franz\u2019s father, stands out even more. Kurth plays stubborn and unlikeable well, but also shows Hermann\u2019s vulnerability and how he uses meanness to cover it up.<\/p>\n
Franz Kafka was born in Prague, in 1883, and he is witness to world-changing events, including the First World War and the subsequent collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Kafka was drafted, but his employers successfully argued that he was an indispensable worker \u2013 according to the movie, they did so at Hermann\u2019s behest. The creation of Czechoslovakia and several other independent states after the war is not an explicit aspect of Franz<\/i>, but the oppressiveness of the empire (the fatherland, in the metaphor) comes out in Kafka\u2019s depictions of bureaucracy, alienation, anxiety, etc. While Franz<\/i> doesn\u2019t add any new knowledge to what\u2019s known about Kafka, his upbringing (harsh on many levels), writing (most of it published after his death), love life (engaged for a period, then involved with a married woman), religion (not an observant or believing Jew) and illness (tuberculosis), but it might bring a new generation to his ideas, which remain important.<\/p>\n
As Holland told Variety<\/i>: \u201cthe dehumanization of society, the despisal of [certain groups of people] and alienation are once again becoming the main communicative tools,\u201d but, not wanting to \u201cgive an interpretation like that,\u201d she said, \u201cKafka has been interpreted in so many ways, as is shown in the film, but when you compare what he wrote with what was written about him they are poles apart. So, we didn\u2019t want to reinterpret Kafka; we wanted to make him alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Franz<\/i> is a success in those terms. It is entertaining and thought-provoking, though sometimes the thoughts are about odd creative choices. There is a lot of male nudity and it\u2019s not always clear why. For example, in one scene at a sanitorium, naked men, some wearing animal head masks, engage in a game of tug-o-war.<\/p>\n
L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Nemes\u2019s Orphan<\/i>, which takes place in Hungary, is a more linear and literal form of storytelling, also focusing on a time of upheaval and oppression. While most of the film takes place in 1957 \u2013 a year after the Soviet Union crushed the people\u2019s revolt against the country\u2019s communist government \u2013 the young Jewish protagonist, Andor (played by a brooding Bojtorj\u00e1n Bar\u00e1bas), was put into an orphanage during the Second World War. We witness his mother and a reluctant Andor reunited after the Holocaust. Her \u201csaviour\u201d was a non-Jew, Berend (played by Gr\u00e9gory Gadebois with nuance), who Andor absolutely hates.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Andor cannot forgive his mother for giving up on the possibility of his father\u2019s survival, even years after the war, and, when Berend claims that Andor is actually his biological son (and Andor\u2019s mother never clarifies), Andor\u2019s anger is barely containable and the tension mounts to a climatic Ferris wheel ride. While Berend is an abusive brute, he also seems to genuinely want Andor\u2019s filial affection. Andor and Berend not only represent son and (possible) father, but Hungary\u2019s desire for freedom from its Soviet oppression.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Orphan<\/i> is slow-paced, capturing the heaviness of the period, the incapacitating fear and oppression of 1957 Hungary. Twelve-year-old Andor doesn\u2019t go to school, roams the streets, amuses himself at home, seems bored silly at times, and has nowhere positive to channel his frustrations and his feelings of abandonment.<\/p>\n While Franz<\/i> and Orphan<\/i> are two very different movies, they cover overlapping themes that are sadly all too relevant. Franz<\/i> screens Oct. 7 and 11, and Orphan<\/i> plays Oct. 2 and 4.<\/p>\n![\"photo](\"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/sep-26-film.26.VIFF-Orphan-c-Mostra-internazionale-darte-cinematografica.jpeg\")
<\/a>