Screening Kafka's surreal stories - The Boston Globe - Boston.com - Movies - A&E

Screening Kafka's surreal stories - The Boston Globe - Boston.com - Movies - A&E: "With its complex, surreal style and nightmarish plot, Orson Welles's ''The Trial' is the visual definition of ''Kafkaesque.' Anthony Perkins plays Josef K., who awakens to find the police in his room asking questions. He's arrested and put on trial but is never told why. Shot in black and white, the film delivers striking images and an almost palpable sense of paranoia. Even with masterpieces such as ''Citizen Kane' and ''Touch of Evil' behind him, Welles still considered ''The Trial' his best film.

See if you agree when the Harvard Film Archive opens its series ''Kafka Goes to the Movies' on Friday. ''The Trial' screens at 9 p.m., after the documentary for which the program is named and two short films, ''Franz Kafka' and ''The Hunger Artist.'

Of course, no Kafka series would be complete without film versions of the author's best-known story. In ''Metamorphosis,' Yevgeni Mironov plays Gregor Samsa, the mild-mannered clerk who wakes up one day to find that he's turned into a giant insect. No special effects here, just Mironov's twitchy, convincing performance. Animator Caroline Leaf puts her own spin on the story with a 10-minute film called ''The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa.' The series ends June 29 and is copresented with the Boston Jewish Film Festival. For more information, call 617-495-4700 or go to www.harvardfilmarchive.org." (more Boston area screening info at link)

---

I don't live in Boston, but the clahm chawdah is yummy, or so I hear.
--