David R. Walker

Posts Tagged ‘Sebastian Schwarz’

Franz

Director: Agnieszka Holland

Cast: Idan Weiss, Peter Kurth, Aaron Friesz, Katharina Stark, Sebastian Schwarz

Running Time: 2 hour and 7 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Film Festival: European Film Festival 2026 – check out website for full details – https://www.eurofilmfest.co.za/

Languages: French, German, Czech

PLEASE NOTE THIS FILM HAS ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Warning this film has a torture scene and graphic nudity.

Europa Europa, Washington Square and Chalatan director Agnieszka Holland’s new film simply titled Franz takes an unconventional and self-reflexive look at the strange life of famed Czech writer Franz Kafka who penned such extraordinary books as the infamous Metamorphosis, Amerika and The Trial.

Kafka was brought up in a wealthy Jewish family in Prague at the beginning of the 20^th century. He was the only son with two sisters and had a very strict and abusive textile merchant father Hermann Kafka expertly played by Peter Kurth.

Franz is played by Idan Weiss who encapsulates the awkwardness of Kafka as a character, not physically strong but clever and questioning. Kafka was hard working and employed in a large insurance company in Prague before and during World War I.

Following his lifelong friendship with Max Brod played by German actor Sebastian Schwarz (I am Your Man), Franz is encouraged in his writing which he finds quite difficult in between dealing with his overbearing family and his demands at the insurance company.

Eventually Franz breaks free from this restrictive environment when he meets Max’s cousin the beautiful Felice played by Carol Schuler and they move to Berlin where finally as a writer he has a room of his own. Here and in later years he penned his famous works while retaining the charm of a martyr.

Polish director Agnieszka Holland doesn’t offer the viewer a packaged conventional biography but instead a unique self-reflexive non-linear storyline in which several key figures in Franz’s life break the fourth wall of the screen and talk directly to the audience offering enticing insights into the complex character of Kafka.

Holland goes a step further as she also reflects on his cultural impact on European literature and how in the 21^st century the Franz Kafka museum in Prague has commodified the writer in the same vein that America has commodified their most famous artists and writers.

The commodification of famous writers is an ideal form of attracting tourists and for a beautiful city like Prague, the Kafka museum is a huge commercial attraction, something which Agnieszka Holland emphasizes in Franz.

As a film, Franz is an unconventional strongly European portrait of a writer that made the character Gregor Samsa famous as he transformed into a monstrous insect.

As World War I changed Europe, Kafka’s fame grew but his health declined.

Franz will appeal to literary enthusiasts and is a fascinating and strange portrait of a unique writer whose unconventionality changed the face of European literature just as the modernist writers were beginning to flourish in England and America in the 1920’s.

With lavish production values, Agnieszka Holland serves up an intellectually challenging film filled with some bizarre scenes especially at the treatment spa in Vienna, while commenting on the relevancy of Kafka in the 21^st century.

Franz gets a film rating of 8 out of 10 and is a unique and challenging film retaining its Bohemian quality and will appeal to lovers of Kafka and literary biographies. Highly recommended viewing for lovers of genuine European content.

I’m Your Man

Director: Maria Schrader

Cast: Maren Eggert, Dan Stevens, Sandra Huller, Hans Low, Jurgen Tarrach, Sebastian Schwarz

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Running Time: 1 hour and 48 minutes

Language: German with English Subtitles

This film is being screened as part of the European Film Festival from 13th to the 23rd October 2022.

German actress Maren Eggert won Best Leading Performance at the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival for her central role as Alma an anthropologist who indulges in a scientific experiment of taking on a humanoid or robotic man as her partner in director Maria Schrader’s fascinating comedy drama I’m Your Man starring the delectable British actor Dan Stevens (Beauty and the Beast, Blithe Spirit, The Man who invented Christmas) as the gorgeous looking rather robotic Tom, complete with startling blue eyes and a good physique.

In a rather strange opening sequence in which Alma is first introduced to Tom at a bizarre social event complete with jazzy music, martini’s, holograms and humanoids, she is not completely taken with the idea of spending time with a robot who is not essentially a pulsating, lustful man, complete with conflicting emotions like aggression, compassion and righteousness.

Director Maria Shrader’s fascinating narrative about the complex relationships between humans and artificial intelligence is intelligently explored in I’m Your Man as Alma eventually agrees to take the beautiful Tom home with her but she has limits about her companionship with this humanoid, not allowing him to share a bed and limiting his capacity for neatness, an algorithm in which he is programmed to provide happiness for the associated human.

When a long awaited Anthropological research paper about love and metaphors in ancient civilizations surrounding Persia is debunked by another author, Alma’s career stumbles and she decides to take Tom out of the city to meet her demented father and sister in the country. There is a stunning scene whereby Tom is wondering around the deer in the park, who are oblivious to any threat as he has no human odour as he is a robot.

On the sexual front, things are far more complex, as Alma discovers that while Tom is programmed to stimulate her, he cannot actually impregnate her. Alma’s initial revulsion to Tom is overcome when loneliness is replaced with curiosity and she does share a bed with Tom. Dan Stevens’s performance as the expressionless Tom is brilliant, creepy and pitch perfect, like the cipher of a man without any of the complexity or emotional nuance.

While Alma decides from an anthropological point of view that it is extremely unwise for humans to become attached to robotic companions, she herself falls into the same trap when she travels to Denmark to reignite a forgotten childhood memory. Director Maria Shrader’s I’m Your Man is a thought-provoking tale about companionship, love and the ethical complications of humans attaching themselves to artificial intelligence.

I’m Your Man gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is held together by two brilliant performances from Maren Eggert and Dan Stevens. Recommended viewing.