Just before going to the Castle, Kafka (Jeremy Irons) ask Bizzlebek (Jeroen Krabbé) to burn his manuscripts if he never came back. Bizzlebek replies "such an extraordinary request". This is in reference of the real request Kafka asked his friend Max Brod before dying. Brod couldn't go with the request, and had Kafka's work published.
Loosely based on Franz Kafka's novel, "The Castle". In it, a protagonist, known only as "K", struggles to gain access to the mysterious authorities of a castle, who govern the village for unknown reasons. Kafka died before finishing the work.
In the end of the movie, Kafka can be seen coughing up blood. Kafka began to suffer from tuberculosis in 1917, and died on June 3, 1924.
The cast includes three Oscar winners: Jeremy Irons, Sir Alec Guinness, and Joel Grey; and one Oscar nominee: Sir Ian Holm.
In the novel "The Castle", as in this movie, the protagonist, struggles to gain access to the mysterious authorities of a castle who govern the village for unknown reasons. "The Castle" is about alienation, bureaucracy, the seemingly endless frustrations of man's attempts to stand against the system, and the futile and hopeless pursuit of an unattainable goal.