The Trial
I am progressing well on my quest of watching more films on Monolith – and of blogging about them all. (No, I still don’t know whether I ever will watch Satantango.) “The Trial” is perhaps the last movie I ever expected to find amusing, but it really was. At least for the first part of the film, anything K said made me want to laugh, just his intonation makes anything he says absolutely ridiculous – and ultimately it was. He was accused in a rather ridiculous manner and reacted just as ridiculously. When I read the book, I was much younger and easily convinced that K did nothing wrong, but now I see things a little differently. How can anyone be sure that one is not guilty? I certainly am guilty of lots of things, and sooner or later I will die, though the two are likely going to be unrelated. Anyways, Wikipedia claims that Welles wanted the movie to be understood as a black comedy, so it seems like I am not alone in my amusement of certain scenes in the film.
The almost infuriating bureaucracy in the book looks and feels completely different here. I remember the very exact and dry style of Kafka’s writing whereas Orson Welles is very… elaborate? I can’t find the right words for it, but it’s just not as concise and exact. It’s not like Kafka’s style can possibly directly translate onto film, but the film looked very splendid and grand to me, kind of like the Magnificent Ambersons did. I am absolutely in love with the scenes at K’s work place, that huge almost architectural grid of desks – grand truly is the only word I know to describe it. The film also sports some dramatic music and a good portion of horror especially with those kids staring at K when he was at the artist’s place. It’s definitely a piece of beauty, and much better than I could have hoped, considering how much I like Kafka’s original.
It’s important to distance yourself from the original when looking at an adaptation. It’s way too easy to say: “The book is better”. It may be true, but that would completely disregard the greatness of the film – its absurd dialogue, its masterful scene composition and last but not least its immensely skilled actors. I am glad Welles got to adapt the film.
A short hail of bullets:
- I have to admit that I was very intrigued to see Jeanne Moreau again. Even though she has a strange face, I think that she has an amazing stage presence and she certainly is one of the reasons I saw the film.
- Little did I know that Romy Schneider had a much larger part in the film, and she actually works really well as Leni. Considering how bad of an actress she is, I am surprised to see that she pulled off this role rather well.
- If there was something much like Kafka’s book, I would say it’s the fable. That is kind of what I imagined Kafka’s style would be – an image that break the story down to a simple black and white illustration with a voice-over of what I assume is an exact translation of what Kafka wrote.