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''Kafka'' is a 1991 film by Creator/StevenSoderbergh, starring Creator/JeremyIrons as Creator/FranzKafka, alongside Creator/IanHolm, Creator/AlecGuinness, Creator/JoelGrey and Creator/JeroenKrabbe.

In 1919, Kafka (Irons) is a mild-mannered bureaucrat living in Prague. One day, his friend Eduard Raban dies in an apparent suicide. But was it really suicide? Don't be silly, of course it was murder. Trying to find out the truth and navigate the chaotic world he inhabits, Kafka gets involved with a resistance group that believes Raban was executed by the state and warns Kafka that he may be next.
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!!This film provides examples of:

* BiographyAClef: The movie shows the eponymous author as an {{Everyman}} navigating an absurd system with many characters and tropes drawn from his short stories and novels presented as biographical experiences.
* BombThrowingAnarchists: The resistance is regarded as such by Doctor Murnau. Indeed, Kafka himself initially regards them as such, before he learns that the conspiracy is real. Admittedly, the fact that the resistance specializes in suitcase bombs doesn't do much to debunk the stereotype.
* ConspiracyTheorist: Kafka's opinion of the anarchists, at first.
-->'''Kafka''': ''You sit around, twisting the facts to suit your inbred theories. In my experience, the truth is not...that convenient."
* DeliberatelyMonochrome: All the scenes in the old city are shot in black and white. When Kafka enters the castle through a secret passage in the climax, the scenes shift to color and back to black and white again when he leaves.
* DieselPunk: Doctor Murnau's inventions have this aesthetic.
* EvilGloating: Naturally, Doctor Murnau spends a lot of time chatting about his EvilPlan.
* EvilTowerOfOminousness: The Castle. Nobody ''goes'' to the Castle unless summoned, and no one leaves.
* GigglingVillain: The Laughing Man is an especially nightmarish example, being a disfigured man who does nothing ''but'' giggle as he butchers men with his bare hands in the night.
* GoryDiscretionShot: Doctor Murnau's gory death occurs off-screen, with us just seeing the blood trickle down.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Doctor Murnau is gruesomely killed by his own device.
* IndividualityIsIllegal: Doctor Murnau's goal is to eliminate individuality.
-->''"A crowd is easier to control than an individual. A crowd has a common purpose. The purpose of the individual is always in question."''
* LaResistance: The resistance group that Kafka gets involved with.
* MadScientist: Doctor Murnau, of course.
* MostWritersAreWriters: Justified in this case, although Kafka being a writer has little bearing on the storyline. Well, other than the fact that it's based on Kafka's works, of course.
* NotSoDifferentRemark: Doctor Murnau is an admirer of Kafka, seeing him as a symbol of 20th century progress that they both embody. Kafka rejects this, regarding Murnau's torturous experiments to understand the human mind as making him nothing more than a butcher.
-->'''Kafka:''' I've... tried to write nightmares, and you've... built one.\\
'''Murnau:''' You have your tools, I have mine.
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Naturally. The most obvious examples are Burgel (who really does turn out to be just a bureaucrat, with no connection to the conspiracy) and the more ominous Chief Clerk.
* ThoseTwoGuys: Kafka's buffoonish assistants Oskar and Ludwig. [[spoiler:They're actually Murnau's assistants, but the bumbling seems to be genuine.]]
* TortureTechnician: Ian Holm plays Doctor Murnau, a frail functionary in a dystopian bureaucracy. He's ultimately [[spoiler: [[HoistByHisOwnPetard hoisted by his own petard]] when one of his subjects breaks loose of his restraints]].
* VastBureaucracy: The movie invokes this, based on the various bureaucracies in Kafka's own writing.
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