Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1995)

 

Another PC writer/director double-whammy.  Like with Strictly Sinatra, he’s not in it, and like with Soft Top Hard Shoulder, it’s kind of bonkers and wonderful.  But that’s not the important part.  Did you know that PC is the first Academy Award winner to play the Doctor?  This quirky brainchild earned PC the Oscar for best live-action short in 1995.

 

Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life is a simple tale in its own, crazed way.  Everyone’s favorite lonely German from Prague is holed up in his spartan flat, laboring over the first sentence of Metamorphosis.  Gregor Samsa finds himself transformed into a gigantic something, but Kafka doesn’t know what, and he entertains possibilities between the constant interruptions that eventually lead him to his cockroachian eureka.

 

As far as writing goes, this short is more blatantly absurdist than the previous PC-penned films I’ve seen.  It has a dream-like detachment to it, a madcap careen from odd interlude to odd interlude.  Not as many out-and-out jokes as Soft Top Hard Shoulder, but the writing is still sharp and quick-witted, more in the plotting than the dialogue.

 

The film is directed with a disorienting mix of melancholy and frenzy that fits the story’s atmosphere.  Rapid-fire fantasy sequences sprint through the narrative without fanfare, knocking you off-kilter in that unique way we call Kafkaesque.  Additionally, the production design is nicely constructed; everything has a handmade look to it that puts you in mind of a spookish Michel Gondry.

 

For performances, we have several people who’ve appeared in other projects PC’s written/directed.  Richard E. Grant, our Kafka, cameoed in Strictly Sinatra; he was also Dr. Simeon on Who last season, but personally, I remember him best as Jack Seward in the Gary Oldman version of Dracula.  PC’s wife Elaine Collins, last seen starring in Soft Top Hard Shoulder, appears again, as does Phyllis Logan (side note, since the new series of Downton Abbey just started on Masterpiece – Mrs. Hughes will always rock.)

 

Recommend?

 

In General – I think so.  It’s a little like early Jeunet stuff, and I like the highly-stylized premise of the author trying to begin his most famous work.

 

PC-wise – Definitely.  Good display of PC’s writing and directing talents, and come on – the guy has an Oscar!  Shouldn’t pass this one up.

 

Warnings

 

A hint of menace, and a scene of insect carnage.