Labyrinth

Story

Synopsis

Film makes the creative process visible by letting its narrative flow in the mind of a foreign director who is researching a film about Franz Kafka in Prague. Based on the principle of dreams and free association, segments unfold that deal with the various points of view that Kafka's work, personality and fate offer. In the labyrinth of his mind, the fictional director projects himself into situations from the author's life, with Kafka himself as his guide. At the same time, he delves into the history of the persecution of the Jews and glimpses the monstrosity of the bureaucratic apparatus that Kafka anticipated but could not have foreseen the monstrous size and function it would grow to a few years after his death in the institutionalized genocide and overall machinery of Nazism.

Director

Jaromil Jireš

Language

Czech

Country

Germany, Czechoslovakia

Release date

27 November 1991

Ensemble

Cast

• 

  Maximilian Schell

  The Filmmaker

• Christopher Chaplin

  Franz Kafka

• Christian Thuri

  David Hilsner

• 

  Miloš Kopecký

  Rabbi Löw

• 

  Vlastimil Brodský

  Löbl

• Antonia Miklíková

  Esther

• 

  Daniel Margolius

  Simon

• 

  Milan Šimáček

• Ludvík Pozník

• 

  Oto Ševčík

  SS man Günther

• Viktor Feuerlicht

• Ladislav Blum