After Steven Soderbergh exploded into the industry with a Palmer d’Or, all eyes were certainly on what he would do next. That turned out to be the quirky, frightening genre experiment, Kafka. It is traditional to hate the movie, which makes it hard to find. Sure enough, just like Ishtar, this film is actually very good. (I wonder if Soderbergh still thinks so, since he has famously reconstructed the film into the silent feature Mr. Kneff, which has been dangled above cinephiles for years now without appearing outside of festivals.)
Soderbergh’s second feature is a tony stew of German Expressionism, gothic horror, and the works of Franz Kafka. They fit together nicely, and the stew thickens. In many ways, this is a film about style over substance, and I’m always here for it.
By bricolaging elements of Kafka’s biography with random names from his books and a healthy dose of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, it gels into a fever dream of Eastern European dread.
I loved this movie, so it should get at least four stars. But until I figure out the reason for the shift between black and white and color, I’m holding back.
The directing and the music are fantastic, and The Laughing Man is one of cinema’s truly terrifying monsters. I will have to read up on the third act. It was a convergence of Murnau, Kafka, and Mary Shelley that also carried a strong scent of Jules Verne. But, why was it in color? What is it asking us about Modernist art and ideology? How much of it is the airing of every artist’s worst fears? When I get a grasp on those questions, I’ll raise my rating.
Those film is more proof that Soderbergh can make any kind of movie he decided to. He bounces from blockbusters and Oscar-winners to intellectual obscurity, indie provocation, and genre experiments…and back again. A truly chameleonic director with a great oeuvre.