Mind Control

Kafka (1991) - Soderbergh

It's a pleasure revisiting Kafka, Steven Soderbergh's sophomore effort, after so many years. It tells a conspiratorial plot involving nebbish insurance clerk, Kafka (Jeremy Irons), discovering more than crippling bureaucracy behind the walls of 'the castle'. It involves mind control and a mad scientist.

Soderbergh gets the look and feel right, shooting it contrasty/grainy B&W then adds some color to accentuate the surreal nature of it all. Jeremy Irons is too proper and too erect to come across as a sickly eccentric. But if you could get fucking JEREMY IRONS on your second movie to play KAFKA, who could say no?
Teressa Russell is unbelievably hot as a sultry eyed revolutionary and always dependable Ian Holm pigeonholes himself again as the mad doctor/tool of a bureaucrat who finds kinship in Kafka's writing, regarding it as the future he envisions.

Opening sequence:

Metamorphose into Mediocrity

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (2012) - The Quays

I understand embracing video technology by artists have strong visual aesthetics. It's cheaper, easier, less time consuming, etc. For me, Lynch's Inland Empire was a major disappointment. His strong suit has always been painstakingly planned mise-en-scene and breathtakingly beautiful cinematography. Even more visual emphasis should be put on when we talk about the world of The Brothers Quay. Obviously, beauty of the Quay films had almost entirely relied upon the intricacy in their stop-motion animation trained craft. After their stint with a DSLR camera last year with On Deciphering the Pharmacist's Prescription for Lip-Reading Puppets. And this time, they are taking on Kafka's The Metamorphosis. One would think this is a perfect marriage. And what a missed opportunity it is- minimal effort, muddy images, lazy realization, this version of Metamorphosis looks like a half-assed High School video project. But it's KAFKA! Even if it was just a commissioned easy money project, how can they justify the quality of this dreadful work?  How can a conscientious artist not look at their work objectively, side by side, with something marvelous like Streets of Crocodiles and say wow, this is unacceptable!

Only saving grace of this screening was music of Leoš Janáček live accompaniment by pianist Mikhail Rudy. But what a major disappointment!