This movie is based on the novel ‘The Trial’ by Franz Kafka. It is regarded as a reflection of his lifelong tension between bachelorhood and marriage or on another level between his skepticism and his religious nature. Kafka’s hatred of his father was a stimulus to write this novel but neither explains the fascination of his writing nor tells us why he wrote at all.
The world shown in the movie is hermetically sealed off from the world. It presents political constellations, complex selves, broken and distorted edges of the mind. Thus the edges of the hero are not shown real in a psychological sense, not true in an empirical sense, and not natural in a biological sense.
In the cast of the movie, we see Anthony Perkins as the protagonist playing a role with the name Joseph K. Then another important character is played by Orson Welles as the Advocate. Romy Schneider comes up to the screen as Leni Jeanne Moreau as Miss Burstner and Elsa Martinell meets us as Hilda.
The setting of the movie is especially concerned with the court and the record room. The movie is presented as white and black. The time duration of the movie covers a span of time in which the hero reveals his total self briefly and endows enough time. The techniques used in the movie are the sharp focus, tracking, and fixed camera. The theme of the movie presents alienating set designs. The language of the movie is lost in the absurdist language of a dwarfing bureaucracy, mannerist and labyrinthine dialogue. The device of expressionism is repeatedly used in the movie, which levels in heroic psychology and hubris. The domineering relationships with women, Jewish persecution, homosexuality are the main themes of the movie. The life of the bureaucrat presents alienating social structures.
The movie starts with the arrogant character of Joseph K. The opening of the movie gives us the idea that how meaningless life is, Joseph is accused of something he knows not what. The world of the movie seems like a nightmare with the hero popping from one surrealistic situation to another. The huge trunks are dragged across empty landscapes. The black and white setting shows the shadows hanging of the life of the characters and the extreme camera angles all make us remember the condition of dread, fear, and anxiety.
The movie is shooted mostly inside the Gare d’Orsay in Paris, Which after is closed into a train station and before it was born as a museum. The office where Joseph works contain rows of desks and typists like the same set of the movie ” The Crowd ”.
In the movie Joseph follows his attempts to discover what is charged with and how he can defend himself same as we see Meursault in the movie ‘The Stranger’ by Albert Camus as he says at the start of the movie ‘My defense is quite simple but at the end, he was unable to do so. Joseph was known as a pornograph player he finds himself in the courtroom where the audience is cued by secret signs from the judge as Kafka says:-
”It’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves”
The character of the Advocate is also obscure, hoping for news on his case living in his maid’s room for a long time. His home is shown as a factory and junk stop, decorated by portraits of judges.
Perkins was one of those characters every one thought him gay, he kept his sexuality private he was a homosexual and in the movie he find three different ladies having no important role to play rather to seduce the guy, who was completely incapable to respond back Joseph K is uninterested in the meeting with the women.
The trial is all about the visual achievement, an exuberant use of camera movement and inventive lighting. The girl chasing Joseph up stairs to a studio shows a loss of relation she wanna with that gay. The themes of meditation and repetitive inspection of their empty self symbolises mankind’s vain search for answers within the vacuum of universe.
The ending of the novel is problematic. The clouds and the final conclusion, all this makes us realize the difference between reality and fantasy. A world governed by its own laws and developing its own logic. The grotesque and abstract situations in the ending of the movie tells us about the distorted insides of the people.
Most of the themes developed by the existentialist philosophies are presented in the movie, the absurd world, the contingency of existence, the nightmare of withitness, and political oppression as Joseph says to the Advocate in the movie
Advocate: You are victim of the society.
Joseph K: Member of a society.
These words show us the same scenario of ”Waiting for Godot” “The Crowd” and “The Stranger” searching for a meaning of life in order to persuade with it.
