“… if you are portraying a great surrealist you cannot do it in a traditional linear way. It needs to be as surreal as the man himself. And here, Holland excels.”
Con Nats
3.5 Webbed hands
Opens 21st May 2026
Franz Kafka (Idan Weiss) was a quirky chap. On one hand he was generous with the blind but nasty to a beggar. Tender in love but repelled by its restrictiveness and inhibition. Insightful yet thoughtless. He lived a life that was inherently a contradiction – working as an insurance clerk by day, yet writing manically at night, which shaped his writing.
Franz is a biopic of the famous surrealist, written by Marek Epstein and director Award-winning director Agnieszka Holland (Europa, Europa and In Darkness). They realise that
He presents one of Kafka’s short stories as a short film, which shows us what a challenging writer he was. Franz is often sprouting insights and gazing at strange images and his webbed hands. Many scenes are carefully crafted. Visually, this film shines without becoming overbearing.
It might start with Franz as a young boy but it quickly flashes forward and back and forward again. It even flashes into our present, to show how famous he became. It’s unnecessary. Having a tour guide tell us how the ratio of books written about Kafka compared to the number of books he wrote was 10 million to one seems pointless. If you don’t know who he was, why would you be in the cinema?
It features those who had the most influence on him – his belligerent father, (Peter Kurth), his teacher and friend, Max Brod (Sebastian Schwarz), sister Ottla (Katharina Stark). They often turn to the camera and speak as if in a documentary. Even Kafka himself gives the long, quizzical looks at the camera. The surrealism slows down in the final act once WWI passes and Kafka has the Consumption.
This film doesn’t hide how terrible he was to lovers. It does show supportive his sister was, his father wasn’t, the people he offended and those who admired him. It’s tough to judge him harshly when the word: ‘Asperger’s’ keep coming to mind. (Kafka was alive well before it was recognised.)
This is all against the backdrop of a raging father and rising anti-semitism. Kafka passed away due to tuberculosis well before WWII broke out. He missed seeing the world descend into a madness only he dared to imagine and write about.
This is a must see for Kafka fans and will entertain those who aren’t. (It will definitely tell you why you should be.) The director has produced a film Franz would pay quizzical attention to.
3.5 Webbed hands
Con Nats, On The Screen
