The Trial compared to Inception

The novel “The Trial” by Franz Kafka deals a lot with the sense of reality and displacement of normal events and objects, like the courts being above run-down apartments complexes. A film that takes this idea to a somewhat extreme sense is the 2010 blockbuster hit, “Inception.” This film pushes all barriers of the dream-like theme and having things be not what they appear.

Typically we think of courtrooms being in large stone buildings with a large number of official insignias and signs. However, “The Trial” plays off the idea of nothing being what it seems and places the courtrooms in what some people would consider slums, above run-down apartments and buildings. The main character, K, is then required to enter very unsettling circumstances to gain access to these courts. Like K in the novel, the young character, Ariadne, in “Inception” also learns to face adversity in a world where nothing is real.

This video clip is explaining the world they are living in and how it isn’t anything anyone expected. Towards the end of the clip, explosions begin throughout the square in which they’re sitting. This feature of the movie almost startles the audience, almost like how finding out courtrooms and official members of the government are doing business in slums of “The Trial.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S41r9GSLoGA&feature=related

At around 22 seconds into the clip, Leonardo DiCaprio says the line, “…you never really remember the beginning of a dream, do you? You always wind up right in the middle of what’s going on.” This is very relevant to the novel, “The Trial.” The first line of the book states, “Someone must have been telling tales about Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested,” (Kafka 5). The audience is almost thrown into the world of this character that we have no background on, and we have no idea if what we’re reading is a true account, or a dream, or just a made-up story. This film also connects to the novel on a paradoxical level.

The novel features the parable of “the law” which is about a young man who wishes to gain entry to the law, however he has to get past the doorkeeper. Even though “Inception” does not feature a parable, it does make reference to a paradoxical piece of artwork, the Penrose Stairs, also called the impossible staircase. Both “The Trial” and “Inception” draw from other pieces of literature or art in order to enhance the point they are both trying to make.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvSD1EAlAUQ

In order for the characters in “Inception” to keep the dream worlds alive, they need to master making mazes. One of the tools for these mazes is the infinite staircase. So many different movies and novels draw on other forms of literature to keep theme of the storyline going and enhance the reader and viewers experience.

Both Welles and Kafka have what could be seen as a somewhat dark style of directing and writing. They like to have things appear often uncomfortable at times and stretch the creative mind of the reader and viewer. In “The Trial,” Kafka makes the story line, characters, and character interactions all very complex and at often times very confusing. In order to adapt to this style, Welles directs his adaptation in the same confusing manner. Some scenes feel extremely cramped and almost cluster phobic. It disorients the viewer at times and makes them feel very disjointed and uncomfortable. Most readers of novels expect them to start dark and then end on somewhat of a lighter note, however “The Trial” breaks all of those barriers and ends in almost a darker place than it started with the death of K. Welles expresses the darkness of this film in his use of lighting and extreme shadow use. A lot of the characters are never in full light and can’t be fully seen. This adds suspense and another level of darkness to the film. Welles and Kafka have very unique and different style of directing and writing, however they compliment each other in an excellent way.