Original subtitles

We really should start elsewhere.

Is he still coming?

He's always late.

An hour. I'm starting to worry.

- Who are you expecting? - Max's meshuggener friend.

We're not really expecting him.

We just know he'll show up eventually, he always does.

Yes, he doesn't like to be at home much.

The young lady is Felice Bauer from Berlin.

Formerly a typist, she was quickly promoted.

She's visiting her relatives in Prague,

the family of the famous writer Max Brod.

She isn't exactly a woman of the world, but...

Sorry, that didn't sound...

I mean, she's a down-to-earth,

practical and intelligent woman.

She's independent, something that was still rare in those days.

For a lost soul, she might represent salvation.

- I hope nothing's happened to him. - You aren't responsible for him.

Actually, I am, now that he's actually bringing out a book.

He doesn't have your kind of talent, Max. All friendship aside.

A strange fellow.

You have to imagine, Felice, one day, I'm lying on the sofa fast asleep.

He enters, wakes me up, and says,

"Please consider me a dream." Then he walks out.

Who knows, Max, someone who thinks up things like that

just might end up as famous as you.

Please excuse me. I've kept everyone waiting.

- I've disappointed you. - Nonsense!

I always disappoint people.

- Franz Kafka. - Felice Bauer.

The cousin of my brother-in-law in Berlin.

You have a brother-in-law in Berlin?

Every important person has a brother-in-law in Berlin.

- Would anyone like to eat? - No, I've stopped.

What do you mean?

There's nothing worse than people eating all the time.

Like animals at the zoo.

- That's the book? - That's going to be the book.

Hopefully never.

Franz, that will be your book. There's no turning back.

There's never been a turning back.

We're going to choose the short stories for the book.

We have free rein. I set up the contract for him.

- You've convinced us, Brod. - You have.

To be precise, you convinced him.

That's enough. I'm the literary expert.

Hear that? Wolffs the expert, I'm the businessman.

A publisher needs both.

A bean counter and an artistic man with a nose for talent.

Nicely put, my dear Rowohlt.

So send us something soon, dear Kafka.

We have a new list to fill, we'll print almost anything. You're in luck.

We don't even read it first.

- He doesn't. - At least I admit it.

- Others always act artistic. - Who do you mean?

Once we're back in Prague, we'll send his Contemplation.

- Contemplation? - I know we need a better title.

Gentlemen, I'll always be more grateful to you

for returning my manuscripts than for publishing them.

What's your book called?

Contemplation.

We wanted a different title, but...

- Great title. - It isn't really.

But it is a fitting title.

It's a terrible name for a terrible book.

Come on, Franz, don't be so modest.

I'm not. It really is bad, unfortunately.

- This has to go. - No, that has to stay.

- It needs to go. - The book's already too thin.

We've made the selection.

- But not this. - We've made the selection!

- All this goes in. - This is an unparalleled catastrophe.

I can't even imagine what it feels like to be the author of a book.

It's terrible.

A book with such a beautiful name too.

If the book doesn't suggest a name, then the name inspires the book.

- You speak Hebrew? - I'm a Zionist.

Me too, I think.

Of course he is. He's a reasonable man.

Of all the languages I haven't mastered,

Hebrew is the most beautiful.

I'm sure you speak the most beautiful language!

Zionism has become a great task.

I'd call it my mission.

Someday, I'll travel there.

Away from the darkness, the cobblestones,

from people who hate the fact that Jews exist.

Away from the pigeons.

The pigeons?

Don't you want to see a country without pigeon droppings, Max?

Let us climb the Hill of Spring together, dear lady!

I mean Tel Aviv. It translates as "Hill of Spring".

I don't speak Hebrew, but since you do, you must know what I mean.

- So do you speak it or not? - I can barely even speak German.

I'm crushed between languages I don't know,

like a fly between the pavement and someone's shoe.

OK, let's do that then.

If you're serious about it. Let's go to Tel Aviv.

I've never been more serious about anything.

Me neither.

THOSE WHO SEEK, DO NOT FIND.

BUT THOSE WHO DO NOT SEEK WILL BE FOUND.

My dear lady,

in the very likely case that you don't recall who I am,

I'll introduce myself again.

My name is Franz Kafka. I'm the one who greeted you

for the first time that evening at Director Brod's home in Prague.

Sister. Hello.

You're late, Felushka.

- How was the trip? - Very, very nice.

There's a letter for you.

"How did I get-your address?

"First, I was given the name of a corporation, but I didn't like it.

"Then I got the address of your apartment, no number,

"and then I got the number.

"Then I was satisfied, and most certainly did not write to you.

"Besides, I was afraid the address might be wrong.

"There's nothing sadder than sending a letter to an uncertain address.

"It's no longer a letter, it's a sigh.

"But beyond these worries about your address,

"my lamenting letter suffered terribly before it was finally written.

"What whims take hold of me!

"A shower of nervousness rains down upon me incessantly.

"What I want one minute, I don't want the next.

"I hoard uncertainties inside myself,

before they take the form of a small certainty or a letter."

Let's hear about Prag

The Charles Bridge is big.

The stones are old.

And above the city there's a huge castle.

And when you walk through the old town...

One of my maladies is that no matter how neatly

I've compiled things,

I can never write them down fluently later.

"My memory is very bad,

but even the best memory couldn't help me write down so much

as a short paragraph I'd thought up earlier and merely memorised."

And the Brods? How are they?

Max is a great piano player.

I saw one of his books in a shop window.

Did you buy it?

Wouldn't that be nice? He should send us one.

You'd read it then?

I don't like reading.

So if he sends it, you won't read it,

and if he doesn't send it, you won't do that?

Leave me be with your jokes.

"I remember one time I got out of bed.

"To write down what I had thought of for her.

"But I went straight back to bed,

"because, and this is another one of my ailments,

"I reproached myself for the folly of my restlessness and I told myself

"I could write down exactly what was in my head

"the next morning.

"Around midnight, those claims always convince me.

"I must admit one thing.

"It sounds terrible and doesn't fit with what I said before.

I'm an unpunctual letter writer."

Good morning.

"In exchange, I never expect letters to be punctual."

- Coffee. - Thanks, Mother. I have no time.

"Even if I excitedly expect a letter every day,

"I'm never disappointed when it doesn't show up.

"And when it does arrive, I'm shocked.

"I've broadened my life to include thinking about you.

"And there's scarcely a quarter of an hour

"in my waking hours when I'm not thinking of you.

And many quarters of an hour in which I do nothing else."

They're beautiful letters.

Letter to the Kronnicke Company, today's date,

to whom it may concern, regarding the delivery,

as previously discussed, of 2,758...

And so it went on. Day after day, week after week, month after month.

No sooner had she finished a letter, the next would arrive.

- Correction. - It just didn't stop!

FROM A CERTAIN POINT, THERE IS NO RETURN.

THAT POINT MUST BE REACHED.

Georg!

Georg!

Georg!

I have some news, Father.

I'm engaged to a young lady, a girl from a wealthy family.

"He hadn't yet discussed with his fiancee

"what arrangements they should make for his father's future.

"For they were under the unspoken assumption

"that his father would remain in the old flat.

"Yet he now resolved, suddenly and firmly,

to give his father a place in their future household."

Am I covered up well?

Quiet now, you're covered up well.

No!

"'No!' yelled the father, so that the answer pushed the question.

"He threw the blanket back with such force that, for a moment,

it unfolded itself in flight, and stood upright in bed."

You wanted to cover me up, I know that, you little rascal,

but I'm not covered up yet.

And even if it is the last of my strength,

it's enough for you, it's too much for you.

But fortunately,

no one has to teach a father to see through his son.

Just when you thought you'd got him down,

so far down that you could sit on him

and he wouldn't move,

this son of mine decides to get married!

Because she lifted her skirts.

Because she lifted her skirts like this, the disgusting goose.

Because she lifted her skirts like this

and this and this.

You went after her.

And so that you could satiate yourself on her undisturbed,

you put your father in bed,

so that he wouldn't be able to move.

I'll sweep her from your side,

you have no idea how!

You were lying in wait for me.

I sentence you to death by drowning.

"Georg felt chased out of the room.

"The crash with which his father fell onto the bed behind him

"was ringing in his ears.

"My dear parents, I always loved you.

"At that moment,

a virtually endless stream of traffic passed over the bridge."

In one night. That's the only way I can write. The only way.

- I don't know what to say. - It's because of her.

- She set everything in motion.

I thought writing and marriage” were mutually exclusive.

But maybe they aren't.

I wrote that in one night, and if I hadn't met her...

Then you wouldn't have?

Why not?'

Haven't you been listening, Brod? That's-what the story's about.

And then? Letters. For weeks, for months, for half a year.

Letters, letters, a love affair by letter, an engagement by letter,

because in 1913,

when a man and a woman write so many letters to each other,

they're not pen pals, they're engaged.

A man you're engaged to, even though you've only met him once.

A man you're engaged to?, even though you've only met him once.

What can I get you?

I’d like nuts and goat's cheese. And a glass of water, please.

Cheese we have, goat we don't. Water we have.

No cheese then.

- And you, madam? - I'll just have tea.

- You know we serve food here? - I don't like eating.

So a plate of nuts for the glutton here and nothing for you?

What joy.

Thank you for your book, by the way. I haven't managed to read it yet.

- What are you reading right now? - Schnitzler. I like him very much.

The Road in the Open, and Professor Bernhardi, and...

A careening mass of the most abhorrent drivel.

- What? - You can't knock him down enough.

Schnitzler?

Your tea, madam.

And nuts for the gentleman. Enjoy your lavish feast.

Is something wrong with the nut?

Why?

Oh, I see.

It's a chewing technique invented by Horace Fletcher.

Chew 40 times before swallowing.

That way, most of the digestive process already occurs in the mouth.

- Thomas Mann wrote to me. - What did he say?

"Please leave me alone, or I'll. call the police"?

On 'the contrary. He congratulated me on my work.

I could be wrong, but as far as I know, there's no living writer

whom Thomas Mann hasn't congratulated on his work.

He's probably also congratulated most of the dead ones. And a few unborn.

How does he find time to write his novels with all that congratulating?

Franz, why the long face?

- I can't marry her. - You can't, or you don't want to?

Look, a man whose circumstances and nature render him utterly unsocial.

Sickly to boot. A non-Zionist Jew.

So why not finally become a Zionist?

I'm disgusted by Zionism. And I admire it very much.

A man excluded from this community by his non-Zionist Judaism.

Even at his best, always a terribly tortured soul.

- A man like that should marry? - Is that really the problem?

Isn't it because you saw her again and...

- How can I put this delicately? - You didn't want to lay her?

- You're making this too simple. - Sometimes it is that simple.

- Come on, Max, let's go. - With pleasure.

- Good evening, sir. - Good evening, dear lady.

I'm engaged.

How lovely, Franz.

Congratulations. Who's the lucky woman?

Dear Dr Kafka, although we don't know each other,

I'm writing to you

because my friend Felice's happiness is very dear to me.

She's worried and has asked me to meet with you.

/As it happens, I'll be in Prague on business

in early November.

If that's convenient for you, we could arrange to meet.

It'd enable me to fulfil my friend's request,

and at the same time meet an extraordinary person.

It's up to you now, Doctor. You can't keep her waiting.

I understand that, dear Ms Bloch.

- You love her, don't you? - I love her very much.

Then what are you waiting for?

I know Felice in the form of four practically irreconcilable girls.

The first in Prague. The second wrote me letters.

- It's all the same Felice. - The third I met in Berlin.

She didn't seem to like me.

That's natural. I completely understand.

- Who's the fourth? - Maybe a good angel is guiding her.

Guiding her ever so closely or maybe not so closely past me.

The angel is guiding her to you, Dr Kafka.

You know you belong together.

You're a good friend to Felice, Grete.

To you too, Dr Kafka!

The fourth Felice is the one who consorts with strangers,

who I hear about in letters and in her own stories.

Her company's representative.

Maybe we can get the four of them together.

But if we got married,

I'd lose my customary terrible loneliness.

But Felice would lose her whole life up to now.

She couldn't work anymore.

- What does she stand to gain? - A wonderful person.

A weak, unsociable, silent, sad,

almost hopeless person.

So she'll get two people for the price of one.

And so they talk and talk, and the next day they meet again,

and then Grete goes back to Berlin,

and they start writing each other letters too.

He speaks openly with Grete. She speaks openly with him.

They talk about many things, especially about Felice,

and it seems to help, because finally...

Felice Bauer.

The detective called.

We checked things out.

- What? - You think you can get engaged

and we'll just watch you made a fool of?

- You think we were born yesterday? - You set a detective on Felice?

We checked things out.

Her father spent some time living somewhere else, it seems.

Her brother's a wastrel.

On the whole, everything seems in order.

Her sister Ema, however,

had an illegitimate child her mother doesn't know about.

Felice has to pay for her and the baby's living allowance.

They don't have to know.

Especially the child. It's nobody's business.

Franz knows.

Grete told him about the baby, but Felice mustn't know that.

The important thing is you can marry her now.

Nothing's standing in the way.

Don't take it so hard, Franz.

I'm sure they've also set a detective on us. It's what happens.

The Kafkas and the Bauers.

Two families, numerous secrets and hidden catastrophes,

about to become one family.

I recently read Franz's The Judgment.

Felice told me he wrote it right after he met her.

Arcadia magazine published it. I .got a copy of it at the library.

A young man wants to marry, so his father sentences him to death.

My Franz wouldn't write something like that.

It’s high time those two get married.

It's been going on far too long.

If you ask me, madam, the whole business is absurd.

Why?

Look how thin Franz is„ like a sick bind.

Why would anyone marry him? At least he has a doctorate!

Go and see Franz. He's not doing well.

- You think? - An event like this iisn't his thing.

Connecting with a person is something' so intimate, so individual,

and here he has to stand in front of everyone

like an ambassador for himself. He can't do that.

- You have to know him rather well. - We talked a lot.

About you and him.

That's sweet of you. I think we wouldn't even be here without you.

And so I say to him, how can you be such a nebbish?

You know what he said?

What's wrong with you, Franz?

What is it, why so glum?

A toast to Franz and his beautiful bride!

Kiss the bride!

- Kiss! Kiss! - Kiss! Kiss!

A CAGE WENT LOOKING FOR A BIRD.

6 weeks have come and gone.

It's summer in Berlin and Dr Franz Kafka has returned.

There's much to discuss before the wedding,

Felice has to move to Prague, after all.

And none of this would've happened

without the selfless efforts of Grete Bloch,

with whom he’s now constantly in touch.

Letters arrived up to three times a day.

You heard that correctly. That's how quick it went.

People could write to each other incessantly.

And if you were Kafka and thought you needed help, you did.

You already know what was happening. And by now Grete knew it too.

"Dear Ms Bloch, I have a double uneasiness

"because of the impossibility of answering two questions.

"First, how will Felice feel if I stop contacting her,

"and secondly, how will I feel?

"Now I've convinced you

"and you've begun to see in me not Felice's bridegroom,

"but Felice's menace.

"Human organisations aren't water to be poured

from one glass into another."

Make up your mind.

Eventually you have to stop tormenting yourself.

If I was healthier and stronger, all difficulties would’ve been overcome.

You're strong and persistent, Dr Kafka.

Persistence can also be the result of despair.

Is everything all right, Ms Bloch?

He always stays in his favourite hotel when he's in Berlin.

It's not a nice hotel.

It's the hotel he's accustomed to staying in.

The Askanischer Hof Hotel.

It's the year 1914.

No one suspects, really no one, that the Great War is coming.

- Dr Kafka. I made a reservation. - You're expected.

- Sorry? - Back room.

- You're mistaking me for someone. - I don't think so.

Sit down, Franz.

- Felice, what is this? - Sit down!

And now you're thinking, that's not how it was,

that can't have happened, it's like something from...

But think about it.

If you're about to say that it's like something from a Kafka novel,

then allow me to say this.

Consider for a moment why that might be.

Grete?

Dr Kafka, you told me things about my friend Felice

that I couldn't keep to myself any longer.

You promised Felice you'd marry her.

And at the same time, you repeatedly told me,

Dr Kafka, and wrote to me, the letters are here,

that you don't feel capable of this marriage.

Both at the same time. Sometimes on the same day.

You can't deny it, Franz. I've read the letters.

Two-faced. There's no other way to put it.

You weren't honest.

What do you have to say?

Go ahead, Dr Kafka. If you say nothing, you can never make it right.

- Coffee, anyone? - No, thank you.

I need clarity, Franz. Your constant misgivings.

The constant postponing of the wedding.

My family's very worried. Isn't that so, Ema?

"Worried"?

Yes, certainly. We're worried.

- Very worried. - Very.

Be honest for once. Explain yourself.

You must explain everything!

Say something, Franz!

You really don't have anything to say?

Someone must have slandered Josef K.

Because one morning he was arrested without having done anything.

You can't go out.

Why not?

We're not authorised to tell you that.

What were they talking about? What authority could they represent?

K lived in a constitutional state, peace reigned,

All laws were in force.

Who would dare to accost him in his own flat?

You're not going to talk?

If you remain silent, there's nothing I can do for you.

You're sitting in judgement over me. I'm sure that's abhorrent to you.

It's abhorrent to me too.

In reality, however, I'm sitting in your seat and I'll not leave it.

I can't force a man to the registry office against his will.

You're right.

A man who talks about love, but really only wants to write his books.

Who only becomes talkative

when it comes to vegetarian cuisine, nuts or exercise.

- Here are my identification papers. - You're behaving worse than a child.

Are you hoping to bring this big confounded trial of yours

to a quick end by arguing with us, your warders?

- That's it then. - I did everything I could, Dr Kafka.

Good ending, isn't it?

Yes, if it had been a story,

it would've ended after the trial at the Askanischer Hof.

But because it isn’t a stony, it continues after that.

Life is so much messier than any story.

And in the meantime, there's a war.

Europe is shattered. People are dying in unimaginable numbers every day.

This is Bodenbach.

A little hotel at the border station between Austria, Hungary and Germany.

Franz.

It's good to see you again.

It was all very hard.

- So, what now? - So many months.

I've written a lot. Do you want to hear something?

Yes.

"This entrance was intended only for you.

"If there was a contradiction between those two explanations,

"you'd be right.

The doorkeeper would have deceived the man."

Is that it?

- He's reading aloud. - Listen to him.

I don't want to anymore.

I don't want to listen to him anymore.

"To this doorkeeper comes a man from the country

"who requests admittance to the Law.

"But the doorkeeper says that he can't admit the man right now.

"The man considers, then asks if he will be permitted to enter later.

"'Possibly, but not right now, ' says the doorkeeper.

"The-door to the Law is open as usual, and the doorkeeper steps aside,

so the man bends down to peer in through the doorway."

How well-behaved we both are.

"When the doorkeeper notices this, he laughs and says,

If you're that tempted, why don't you try to go in despite my prohibition?

'"But remember this, I am powerful.

'"And I am only the lowliest doorkeeper.'

"From room to. room, doorkeepers stand guard,

"each more powerful than the last.

"The mere sight of the third is already more>than even I can bear.

He reads about a man who spends his life

waiting in front of a door that was always open.

"For this entrance was intended only for you.

I will go and close it now.

"I will go and close it now."

My train leaves soon.

I know.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO LEAVE THE HOUSE.

STAY AT YOUR TABLE AND LISTEN.

Are you all right, madam?

Miss, if you please. Yes, thank you.

I've had a long train journey. From Berlin.

- How long were you travelling? - Almost 2 days.

Do you remember when it took 7 hours to get from Berlin to Munich?

- That was in another life. - Before the war.

Now every military train has priority.

There's no electricity at the stations, it was freezing.

- All that way just for a lecture? - He is...

I mean, was...

- He's my fiance. - The man giving today's lecture?

Then tell me please, why, at a time like this, a writer...

Do you know who that is?

Good evening.

I'm going to read a piece I've recently finished.

It's probably not very good, but...

In the Penal Colony.

The condemned lies on his stomach

on this cotton batting, naked.

The straps here hold him down - by his arms and his legs.

The face goes there, this small lump of felt presses just into the mouth.

It stops the-condemned man biting his tongue to pieces:

If you look here...

Do you understand the procedure?

The machine begins to type.

When it's finished the first application of the script

onto the condemned man's back,

the cotton layer rolls and turns the body on its side.

Someone help him!

You used to write such beautiful things, like Contemplation.

You came all this way, Felice. Such a long way.

I wanted to listen to you.

- That was unspeakable. - Thank you.

- I'm Rainer Maria Rilke. - I know.

This is my fiancee. Ms Bauer.

It's an honour.

Your novella about the stoker is

one of the most powerful and wondrous pieces

I've ever had the pleasure of reading.

What merciless rigour,

and what strangely obscure lucidity of the gaze.

I see that same rigour in this story.

Blackened into bloodiness,

but what could be more appropriate, in an age of death?

- You've read The Stoker? - I've read all your work.

Your The Metamorphosis awakened nightmares in me.

How can one write such things

and otherwise simply go about one's daily business?

What do you do all day, Franz Kafka?

I work in an accident insurance institute.

Mutilations?

Blood and bloody steel?

In large quantities.

After this evening, I can't pretend I'm surprised.

And you, madam? Me?

I'm the representative of a company in Berlin.

You have a real job of your own?

I have a real job in the same way you don't have one, Mr Rilke.

- I really don't have one. - Not everyone can do that.

What does the company you work for in Berlin do,

tho one where you're a representative?

We manufacture machines that...

Machines, the current masters of the world.

I'd have said the same if I could've said it like that.

But I'll tell you, the ore will get homesick

and leave the machines to return to the mountains.

You can wish for that sort of thing, but it probably won't happen.

No, it won't happen.

God be with you, Franz Kafka.

God bless you.

I fear you'll need it.

With your good lady.

Did you hear that, Felice? He's read everything!

Everything.

Then, in the last year of the war...

It's called a haemorrhage.

They say I have tuberculosis,

but I consider this disease more a general bankruptcy inside me.

They can't both stay alive.

Both?

The one who should've lived with you and the one who'll do what he has to do.

The task is all-consuming.

One of us has to die, and it can't be the one who does the work.

"The work"? You mean the writing?

You make it easy on yourself.

You took my youth as if it belonged to you.

You wrote me letters full of beauty, wit and passion.

You bound me to you as if it were your right.

Then you got scared, reconsidered,

and constantly talked about your need to write.

You overestimate yourself.

That's why you make yourself so small.

- You're my human court, Felice. - Whatever that's supposed to mean.

So now I'll say what I've always said,

but today I'm saying it for the last time.

My train leaves soon.

No goodbye kiss.

Do you remember the first time we met?

You asked me if we'd go to Palestine.

Why did we never do that? If we'd done that...

You think things would've been different?

They never saw each other again.

- My God, Franz. You're so pale. - She's left.

What I have to do, I have to do alone.

What's that supposed to mean? All of us here are...

There are no marriages here. None of you are married.

- Even if you think you are. - What does that mean?

Isn't it terrible that such things happen?