Director: Andreas van Riet
Writer: Andreas van Riet (Adapted from Franz Kafka)
Cast: Andreas van Riet, Tommy van Riet, Natalia Cincunegui, Ton van Riet, Donna van Doorn, Enola Sirzad
Running time: 25mins
For better or worse, there are many, many adaptations of Franz Kafka’s Die Verwandlung [The Metamorphosis]. I would like to think that the story’s analogous themes of social alienation, and the dehumanisation of anyone who does not conform to the needs of our present economic and political norms are what draws so many people to the work. But I have a suspicion that it is more to do with the fact the source material is in the public domain, and provides a very obvious set of images for filmmakers to utilise without having to think too much, while also lending whatever transpires a certain intellectual veneer.
It was with some relief that I realised that Andreas van Riet’s short adaptation is not of the latter camp, and is acting in good faith. This is a polished, patient production, which puts a lot of thought into conveying Kafka’s style of prose visually – as opposed to just killing time in the build-up to a comical reveal of some big, silly bug costume – and largely succeeds for it. In fact, Van Riet seems specifically to play with our expectations in this regard – with protagonist Gregor Samsa covered in his entirety by bed-linen for his first appearance.
Played by Van Riet himself, Gregor can be seen shifting and shivering beneath the white sheet – and as day breaks, our eyes can trace the outline of what appears to be a pair of antennae, where the top of his head must be. As worried knocks come from outside his bedroom door – he has overslept amid his titular metamorphosis, and his employer is concerned at his absence – Gregor finally finds the energy to flop out of bed. But as the sheet falls from his body, the big reveal we have been bracing for is subverted in glorious fashion. Gregor lays still on the floor before us, very much in human form.
The twist here – possibly the only one from this almost excessively faithful adaptation – is that we never have any clue what physical form Gregor has taken on. Our only hint that he has become the “monstrous vermin” of Kafka’s text comes from the way his family treats him. As he finally crawls from the confines of his room, his mother passes out from shock, before his father angrily chases him back into his sleeping quarters – armed with a rolled-up newspaper.
The decision to pointedly not show us what has happened to Gregor’s external persona is a canny move, on two fronts. Most obviously, on a practical level, it avoids the visuals of this otherwise pristine, black-and-white 4:3 footage suddenly loses all credibility, as a rubbery Halloween mask inadvisably wobbles into view. As an exploration of Kafka’s work, it also helps to set The Metamorphosis apart from the crowded field – and to find a new way to interact with the author’s own ideas about his project.
In a letter to his publisher, Kafka instructed that in its cover artwork, “The insect itself cannot be depicted. It cannot even be shown from a distance.” It is this plea which eventually meant that while David Lynch had a script for his own adaptation of The Metamorphosis, he decided not to commit it to film, out of respect for the source material. Van Riet’s decision to proceed with everyone treating him as an insect, but without capitulating to the lure of a special-effect set-piece feels like a fresh and authentic way of engaging with the material – and again sets him apart from the efforts of filmmakers who seemingly just Googled public domain stories they could trash with minimal effort.
He also seems to have tried to engage further with Kafka’s process, in making this production a family affair. Gregor’s father, who immediately treats him with fear, aggression and disgust, the moment he cannot supply the family with a steady income, is understood to have been influenced by the worldviews of Kafka’s own father. You can see how someone viewing an artist – someone who, compared to a salesman, might struggle to secure a steady living – as some kind of useless vermin might have inspired this story’s depiction of paternity. And here, Tommy van Riet plays that role to perfection – a smile creeping across his face when at certain points in the film, circumstances allow for him to give his son / the vermin a good hiding.
Beyond these points, Van Riet’s faithful adaptation also allows us to think and feel with Gregor on the way to broader, and more analogous thought, though. As he lays fixated on a particular photograph of himself in military garb, Gregor’s transformation takes on a distinctly human angle – having gone from the proud, archetypical ‘hero’ of the status-quo (an able-bodied man, willing to put his body on the line for his nation-state, and to maintain his family through stable employment in civilian life), he now finds his body has failed him, and that he is in need of support. And oddly enough, there is none to be found. In the absence of a welfare state – an absence he was filling when he was employed – his family are left to care for him; and in a world where they have been taught to equate someone’s productivity with their value as a human, they quickly write him off as a disgusting burden.
In Van Riet’s adaptation of Kafka’s work, this takes on a monstrous new reality. While in some sense, Kafka’s story is intensely sad, it still hinges on a literal reality in which a man has become a humongous insect. It is not so shocking to think that human beings, even close relatives, would recoil from that instinctively. But Van Riet determinedly reminds us of Gregor’s humanity. He is just as human as every person who’s on social security because the work they are best at is not in demand, or because their body cannot physically cope with the demands of those forms of work, or because they are barred from full-time employment while seeking refuge from a distant war-zone. And every one of those figures – the person who is ‘economically inactive‘, unemployed, disabled, and or seeking asylum – is still depicted by mainstream political discourse as vermin. To that end, Van Riet’s film is a very worthy adaptation, which brings something new and thought-provoking to the table.
There are still some issues beyond this. It could very well be argued that, beyond the decision to show Gregor as human, there is not quite enough new input here. There is no alternative take on his sister, Grete, for example – in fact there is not much of a take on her at all. Considering the extent of her transformation – from trying to care for Gregor, to becoming the first to recommend they get rid of ‘It’ – in the narrative, there is some discussion as to whether The Metamorphosis is actually more about how she changes. There is not enough on display here to foreground any of that.
There are also references to former ways of life which will probably not translate to modern audiences – beyond fans of Kafka’s original work. This is especially the case when exposition and dialogue are cut back for the sake of a short-film run-time. When Gregor speaks of his desire to send Grete to a ‘conservatory’, for example, it is unclear as to what this is, or what it would do for her. In a wider context, it becomes clear in the novella this is an institution to help her hone her skills as a musician – but that is somewhat lacking here, meaning either a more recognisable term could have been substituted, or Van Riet’s editing needed to find a way to make things clearer for us.
All in all, though, Van Riet’s The Metamorphosis is something of a triumph. His decisions to subvert our expectations over the appearance of the ‘insect’ are imbued with a deeper meaning, that help justify his making a version of this story. At the same time, Oscar Laucke’s camera, and Van Riet’s editing those shots together with feverish dream sequences, half-glimpsed memories, and clips of old silent cinema create an esoteric and surreal visual language that more than lives up to Kafka’s prose.