Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life

Peter Capaldi, UK 1994, 26 minutes

It's a wonderful idea; a film which puts together the darkest and most surreal story of personal struggle with the most warmhearted tribute to the spirit of community, all in under half an hour.

The deeply introspective work of the Czech writer, Franz Kafka, with its confusion between reality and nightmare has been highly influential in European literature. Meanwhile, Hollywood is constantly trying to recapture Frank Capra's (It's a Wonderful Life) open-hearted glorification of small town America and deft handling of the sentimental.

As the film opens, Kafka is sitting down to write his tragic short story Metamorphosis. He knows that his protagonist has been transformed - but into what? His torments of artistic indecision make even the most pressing essay crisis seem trivial. His neighbours are noisy and he is constantly interrupted, but is he in fact being given a clue as to how to proceed?

The production, home grown by BBC Scotland, no less, with its saturated colour and extreme camerawork has all the dreamlike menace of Kafka's writing, while the story-line sends it up shamelessly. The script has some extremely witty moments and the cast enters totally into the spirit of the enterprise. The ending is a delightful twist on Capra's film and perfectly rounds off this Oscar-winning, midget gem of post-modern cinema.

Review by Alison Dalzell
Taken from EUFS Programme 1997-98