Kafka meets Haneke aka: a match made in heaven or a recipe for disaster? A dangerous combination, methinks, with one aim: to make the reader/viewer experience the pain associated with living into a tyrannical society ruled by ultra-bureaucracy. A society where humans live-survive by digging deep into their reserves of distrust, hatred and despise for their fellow human beings. The main objective being self preservation. Kafka related his own take on such reality, and Haneke tranported it onto the screen. Both of them were very successful. The result is exactly what was intended: a painful, slow, frustrating, hair pulling experience.
K., a land surveyor, arrives at the village he has been assigned to. He goes into an inn looking for shelter for the night. He enquires about the man in charge at "The Castle". He is immediately met with suspicion by the locals. Or rather, he is met with indifference from the drinkers and with suspicion by an official who introduces himself as the castellan son, who wakes him up, asks about his whereabouts, decides that K. Must be a liar or a trump and immediately reaches for the phone to find out. Initially the person at the other end of the line seems to confirm his suspicion but a second call confirms the new arrival's account. And now it is the new arrival's turn to make threats, promising his would-be-tormentor that he "will deal with him in the morning".
We can sense the castellan son initial satisfaction for having unmasked an impostor, after the first phone call. His anticipation to unleash his authority, while he congratulates himself with the bystandanders about the accuracy of his first assessment. But: is he happy for having being successful in his prompt reporting of an illegal intruder, a success that can only be beneficial for him (self preservation again), or is he just a miserable sadist? We sense his disappointment when the second phone call frustrates his fun - just as he is walking towards the sleeping impostor, brimming with excitement.
The scene is set. In this village people don't trust each other. They don't like new comers. They don't want the balance of their world to be upset in any way. Why?
We can only try to guess the answer, because, as it becomes more and more evident as events unfold, there is no answer, or rather: the answer, if there is one, is irrelevant. The motives behind human behaviour in a claustrophobic, asphyxiating reality, becomes irrelevant. Motives do not count. To avoid being crushed in this minefield of diffidence/distrust/cruelty one cannot waste time and energy psychoanalysing or double-guessing what the drivers behind everybody else's behaviuor are. Everybody else has the potential for being an attacker, an enemy, a threat. Therefore the emphasis must be on self preservation. What counts is what one does, how one responds to the constant threats, how one reacts to them, anticipates them, pre-empts them. How one avoids acting in a way that may result into something bad happening to oneself.
There is no hiding. The threat is always present, it can come from anywhere. The castellan son, the local teacher, one's own lover. It's almost impossible to know who our friends are, because friendship can turn into betrayal very quickly.
K.'s attempts to get in touch with the authorities at the Castle to start his assignment are frustrated by delays, contradicting information, unavoidable detours. He goes to the bar, meets Frieda who proudly reveals to be Klamm's mistress. When someone comes in looking for K. Frieda hides him under the bar and when asked if she has seen him she denies it. And that is the beginning of a tumultuous love story. After a night of passion when they "breathe as one" they start planning their rest of their lives together.
Are they moving too fast? Love at first sight? Maybe - in a different book (and movie). Because for Kafka - and Handle - time does not abide by conventional rules. He plays with time, stretches it and freeze it at will. Things can happen really, really, really slowly, so slowly that they may never happen at all. Or they can happen very quickly, almost instantly. This is a world where time moves fast or slow according to the rhythm of the Castle.
The way time - and things in general - work in a village overseen by the Castle is explained by an official that K. Meets in the official's bedroom: decisions can take time. They can take a long time. For example, the land surveyor job is the result of a game of Chinese whispers that might have started in the labyrinth of the castle offices, with someone saying a land surveyor was needed. By the time a decision was made, and a land surveyor was assigned to the village, nobody remembers why a land surveyor was needed. The officer explains that careers are made or destroyed not through logical planning, but rather by being at the right place at the right time, a chance encounter with someone with authority, a fleeting glance, a nod. Making the most of that instant would achieve instantly what months of questions, queueing, planning would never achieve.
In the Castle things do not happen in the name of logic. It's the other way round: logic is appended to actions, activities, decisions - afterwords. Logic is an inconvenience, a chore, a label that needs to be stuck to things after they happen. As in the scene where K. Is told that the Castle is happy with the job that the land surveyor has done so far. Even if he hasn't done any surveying. But then someone else tells K. That he can be a genitor at the local school instead. Which one is it? Is the land surveyor doing a good land surveying job? Or does he need to become a genitor?
Frieda is quick to like the genitor option as it would mean them fitting into the society as organised by the Castle, so they can get married. She explains that she was happy before, being Klamm's mistress, working at the bar, fitting into schemes. She can only stay with K. If he complies, or if he accepts to run away with her to France or Spain. There is no option of a middle way. No point in forcing the land surveyor route as Frieda knows that that route may never happen. But K. Is not happy with it. He left everything to be land surveyor and he won't accept a compromise. Frieda abandons him. At the drop of a hat. As quickly as she had committed to becoming his wife.
My rating: 9/10. A very good effort from Master Haneke for what must have stood as an extraordinary challenge. Maybe not quite as frustrating, painful, hair-pulling when compared to the book. Probably not a bad thing after all. Or is it?
K., a land surveyor, arrives at the village he has been assigned to. He goes into an inn looking for shelter for the night. He enquires about the man in charge at "The Castle". He is immediately met with suspicion by the locals. Or rather, he is met with indifference from the drinkers and with suspicion by an official who introduces himself as the castellan son, who wakes him up, asks about his whereabouts, decides that K. Must be a liar or a trump and immediately reaches for the phone to find out. Initially the person at the other end of the line seems to confirm his suspicion but a second call confirms the new arrival's account. And now it is the new arrival's turn to make threats, promising his would-be-tormentor that he "will deal with him in the morning".
We can sense the castellan son initial satisfaction for having unmasked an impostor, after the first phone call. His anticipation to unleash his authority, while he congratulates himself with the bystandanders about the accuracy of his first assessment. But: is he happy for having being successful in his prompt reporting of an illegal intruder, a success that can only be beneficial for him (self preservation again), or is he just a miserable sadist? We sense his disappointment when the second phone call frustrates his fun - just as he is walking towards the sleeping impostor, brimming with excitement.
The scene is set. In this village people don't trust each other. They don't like new comers. They don't want the balance of their world to be upset in any way. Why?
We can only try to guess the answer, because, as it becomes more and more evident as events unfold, there is no answer, or rather: the answer, if there is one, is irrelevant. The motives behind human behaviour in a claustrophobic, asphyxiating reality, becomes irrelevant. Motives do not count. To avoid being crushed in this minefield of diffidence/distrust/cruelty one cannot waste time and energy psychoanalysing or double-guessing what the drivers behind everybody else's behaviuor are. Everybody else has the potential for being an attacker, an enemy, a threat. Therefore the emphasis must be on self preservation. What counts is what one does, how one responds to the constant threats, how one reacts to them, anticipates them, pre-empts them. How one avoids acting in a way that may result into something bad happening to oneself.
There is no hiding. The threat is always present, it can come from anywhere. The castellan son, the local teacher, one's own lover. It's almost impossible to know who our friends are, because friendship can turn into betrayal very quickly.
K.'s attempts to get in touch with the authorities at the Castle to start his assignment are frustrated by delays, contradicting information, unavoidable detours. He goes to the bar, meets Frieda who proudly reveals to be Klamm's mistress. When someone comes in looking for K. Frieda hides him under the bar and when asked if she has seen him she denies it. And that is the beginning of a tumultuous love story. After a night of passion when they "breathe as one" they start planning their rest of their lives together.
Are they moving too fast? Love at first sight? Maybe - in a different book (and movie). Because for Kafka - and Handle - time does not abide by conventional rules. He plays with time, stretches it and freeze it at will. Things can happen really, really, really slowly, so slowly that they may never happen at all. Or they can happen very quickly, almost instantly. This is a world where time moves fast or slow according to the rhythm of the Castle.
The way time - and things in general - work in a village overseen by the Castle is explained by an official that K. Meets in the official's bedroom: decisions can take time. They can take a long time. For example, the land surveyor job is the result of a game of Chinese whispers that might have started in the labyrinth of the castle offices, with someone saying a land surveyor was needed. By the time a decision was made, and a land surveyor was assigned to the village, nobody remembers why a land surveyor was needed. The officer explains that careers are made or destroyed not through logical planning, but rather by being at the right place at the right time, a chance encounter with someone with authority, a fleeting glance, a nod. Making the most of that instant would achieve instantly what months of questions, queueing, planning would never achieve.
In the Castle things do not happen in the name of logic. It's the other way round: logic is appended to actions, activities, decisions - afterwords. Logic is an inconvenience, a chore, a label that needs to be stuck to things after they happen. As in the scene where K. Is told that the Castle is happy with the job that the land surveyor has done so far. Even if he hasn't done any surveying. But then someone else tells K. That he can be a genitor at the local school instead. Which one is it? Is the land surveyor doing a good land surveying job? Or does he need to become a genitor?
Frieda is quick to like the genitor option as it would mean them fitting into the society as organised by the Castle, so they can get married. She explains that she was happy before, being Klamm's mistress, working at the bar, fitting into schemes. She can only stay with K. If he complies, or if he accepts to run away with her to France or Spain. There is no option of a middle way. No point in forcing the land surveyor route as Frieda knows that that route may never happen. But K. Is not happy with it. He left everything to be land surveyor and he won't accept a compromise. Frieda abandons him. At the drop of a hat. As quickly as she had committed to becoming his wife.
My rating: 9/10. A very good effort from Master Haneke for what must have stood as an extraordinary challenge. Maybe not quite as frustrating, painful, hair-pulling when compared to the book. Probably not a bad thing after all. Or is it?