France, United States · 1991
Rated PG-13 · 1h 38m
Director Steven Soderbergh
Starring Jeremy Irons, Theresa Russell, Joel Grey, Ian Holm
Genre Comedy, Drama, Mystery
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Kafka, an insurance worker gets embroiled in an underground group after a co-worker is murdered. The underground group is responsible for bombings all over town, attempting to thwart a secret organization that controls the major events in society. He eventually penetrates the secret organization and must confront them.
The slightly overdone feeling of the photography, the archly evocative acting and Cliff Martinez's music also impart a sly sense of the absurd. Kafka recalls the old joke that reminds us that even paranoids have enemies. [12 Feb. 1992, p.C07]
Steven Soderbergh's Kafka is a surprisingly cold, gray and flavorless follow-up to "sex, lies and videotape." [7 Feb. 1992]
Trying for a tone somewhere between an art film, an absurdist comedy, a horror movie and an old Saturday-matinee serial, he's made a handsome, cripplingly self-conscious thriller that's devoid of any real thrills. [3 Feb. 1992, p.65]
San Francisco Chronicle by Edward Guthmann
It sounds promising, but it doesn't work. You get the feeling that Soderbergh, so early in his directing career, has exceeded his reach -- that the com- plicated logistics of making a film on location in eastern Europe, compounded with the challenge of bringing to life such a fundamentally lonely and passive figure, had stymied him. [17 Jan. 1992, p.D1]
Despite its good looks and expertly turned performances, it trivializes Kafka and his work. The simplistic optimism behind it is more terrifying than anything we actually see on screen. Sitting through Kafka is like watching somebody staff a suicide hotline by telling callers to just lighten up. [21 Feb. 1992, p.28]
Austin Chronicle by Marjorie Baumgarten
Humor is a key ingredient in Kafka, though it definitely leans toward the wry and quirky. The movie loses some of its clarity and narrative force in mid-story however, though it never abandons its original visual style and focus.
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
The movie is MTV Kafka: Instead of dialogue, character, behavior, it has a look and a mood. And that's all it has.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
Kafka, as subject or character, simply doesn't fit into the world of this film. Soderbergh does demonstrate again here that he's a gifted director, however unwise in his choice of project.
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