Das Schloß

A land surveyor,K.,is invited to the Castle to do some work for the Count,but when he arrives at the Village,he finds that nobody is expecting him.K.'s attempts to get into the Castle are as unsuccessful as his attempt to settle into the local village.He is greeted by a compact reluctance from the villagers,who with a systematic inefficiency prevent him from any prospects of even approaching the castle.The harder the stubborn K.,tries,the farther he moves from his goals.The impenetrable,seemingly haphazard but strangulating bureaucracy of the castle hinders the clarification of his social and existential situation.K. remains what he was on the day of his arrival:a stranger who is barely tolerated...Haneke's film version of Kafka's famous unfinished novel is an unusually faithful and highly successful literary adaptation.Kafka is,with his absurd,pessimistic yet still very realistic idea of the world,a sort of soulmate of Haneke's.