How do you present the life of an ordinary man who lived an ordinary life while being an extraordinary writer? The answer for Agnieszka Holland’s (Green Border) is to cut back and forth through time, to present key moments from Kafka’s childhood and adult life and juxtapose them with his hometown of Prague in the present and Max Brod’s attempts to smuggle Kafka’s out of Nazi controlled Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. “Holland’s film [is] fragmented into a rattling kaleidoscope structure that forges connections not just between Kafka’s childhood and his adult neuroses, but the targets of his socioeconomic commentary and our corporatized present” – Guy Lodge, Variety.

Poland’s Official Entry to the 98th Academy Awards.

Film Club discussion after Friday’s screening