impossible imperatives
Michael Haneke
(screenplay, based on the novel by Franz Kafka), Michael Haneke (director) Das Schloß
(The Castle) / 1997, USA
1998
Originally
made for Austrian television, Michael Haneke’s retelling of the Kafka novel is
faithful rendition that even ends, as does Kafka’s book, in mid-sentence. But
Kafka’s fable, in the hands of this masterful director, is transformed into a
more grimly absurd work by the qualities of verisimilitude lent to the fiction by the medium of
film itself. While one can read Kafka’s brilliant work as a kind of parable,
actually seeing the distressed land surveyor K (Ulrich Mūhe) having to face the
dozens of dispassionate authorities and other bureaucratic functionaries of the
small, isolated town infected by the machinations of the unseen Castle,
provides this work with an eerie sense of dé-jà
vu. We have seen just a world in the German and Russian dictatorships—but
after the fact of Kafka’s telling. And the strange displacement of that realization
emphasized by Haneke’s theatrical presentation of the tale—including complete
blackouts after each scene( as if imitating the book’s original chapters) dark,
often blurred, and obscured images, and the perpetual sense of the characters’
walking which takes them nowhere. This is a world where no one quite knows
what’s going on, and where some simply obey without even understanding entirely
what has been requested of them.
So K becomes involved in the life of a
village under the somewhat resentful yet serf-like thrall of the Castle. Other
underlings come and go, each giving their own strange orders, warnings, and
messages. The city’s Council Chairman, with whom K. ultimately meets, explains,
seemingly quite rationally, that it has been a long-time mistake, that the
community was ordered a land surveyor for whom they had no need, with, over
years of paperwork and messages to and from the government the confusion has
led to K’s unintentional appointment. But having fallen in love with Frieda and
having given up all former positions, traveling the long distance, and spending
his savings, K. has no choice but to remain. He is appointed as school janitor,
but even his night in the schoolhouse with Frieda—wherein the couple, nearly
freezing, break into the woodhouse and are plagued by the appearance of the Artur
and Jeremias in their bed—ends in disaster as the school master and students
arrive while the couple are still asleep, naked upon their mattress.
Despite
Barnabas’ messages to and from the Castle, there seems to be no real
communication, and others of the village are shocked that K has visited the
young man’s house, which seems to be associated with the daughters’ shocking
sexual behaviors. When Frieda finally leaves K, determining that despite her
love for him, he has merely used her in hopes of connections with the Castle, K
returns to the inn where she has previously worked, attempting to meet with
authorities, but only finds another Castle representative who, luring him to
sit upon his bed, explains his inability to intercede.
As I mentioned, the film, just like
Kafka’s work, ends mid-sentence with K’s intent to seek further intercession, a
suggestion perhaps, as Kafka’s friend and executor, Max Brod, had argued that
Kafka intended to have K remain in this ghastly village, sent on the day of his
death, a message that, although he was still illegally there, he had permission
to remain. Perhaps Kafka had no intention of completing the work. It hardly
matters, for what is clear, particularly in Haneke’s powerful rendition, any
further action in such a perverted world, would have had no further meaning for
K’s life. Like the later Jewish, Gypsy, and gay prisoners of the German (and
Russian) concentration camps, for those deemed as outsiders whom the
authorities had determined to destroy, the only option was to pray for
survival; acceptance, joy, love, comfort are impossible imperatives. Although
we never see the Castle, its feudal shadow looms large over this cold and
frozen village where everyone is a harbinger of suspicion and hate.
Los Angeles,
March 22, 2013
Reprinted
in International Cinema Review (March
2013).
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