Franz

The ratio of words written by Franz Kafka and those written about him is estimated to be one to 10 million. Born to a middle-class German and Yiddish–speaking Czech Jewish family in Prague in 1883, Kafka — who wrote now-celebrated novels and short stories in his brief 40 years — is universally regarded as a major figure of the 20th century.

In Franz, we meet Kafka (played by Idan Weiss, who shines in his first major role) as a young man — a lawyer working in insurance — navigating his passion for literature while balancing the responsibilities of being a son and future husband in a conservative yet economically troubled society on the verge of World War I. Possessing talent for blending realism and fantasy as well as a penchant for savagely worded skewerings of bureaucracies and man — whether facing surreal predicaments or his own nature — Kafka’s world was compressed by a long battle with tuberculosis.

Often citing Kafka as a major influence, Agnieszka Holland — who studied in the former Czechoslovakia, witnessed the Prague Spring of 1968, and was imprisoned for supporting the local dissident movement — brilliantly surmounts the framework of a standard biopic.

Franz toggles between Kafka’s rich yet fleeting life and present day, where in a docu-like manner we see how his name is used to sell everything from hamburgers to key chains — a Kafkaesque turn of events if there ever was one. Dropping generous Easter eggs to reveal what made this objectively fascinating man tick like Prague’s 15th-century Orloj astronomical clock, we delve into the origins of some of his infamous particularities and paranoias. Fortunately, Kafka’s legacy is safe in the hands of this masterful tour de force.

DOROTA LECH