Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Kafka (1991)
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Post-WWI Prague. After the disappearance of a colleague, Kafka (Irons), an aspiring writer and toiling clerk, is torn between a diffident policeman (Mueller-Stahl) and an angry revolutionary (Russell). Slowly but inexorably he's drawn into the deadly political machinations of the times, and an experiment in social engineering more nightmarish than even his own imaginings. At night, leprous, lobotomised creatures skulk in the shadows, while anarchists conspire and the authorities despatch body-snatchers from the castle high above the cobbled gas-lit city streets. Shot in inky b/w Soderbergh's follow-up to sex, lies and videotape took a hammering from the US critics. It is, however, an intriguing, idiosyncratic and often highly entertaining movie - a biopic which conflates elements of the author's life and writings into a fiction much bigger than life. It takes a sluggish half hour to take shape, and even then the absurdist comedy seems misjudged, but it's more playful than pretentious, and it works as a genuinely eye-catching mystery thriller.Author: TCh
Cast & crew
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Producer: Stuart Cornfeld, Harry Benn
Cast: Jeremy Irons, Theresa Russell, Joel Grey, Ian Holm, Jeroen Krabbé, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Alec Guinness full cast
Duration: 98 mins
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now