June 3, 2024, 2:09pm
Image via Wikimedia and KPBS Online
Kafkologists rejoice, a new movie about the final, romance-filled year of the writer’s life is headed for theaters across the world.
The Glory of Life is a German-language film based on Michael Kumpfmüller’s novel Die Herrlichkeit des Lebens. The film follows Kafka’s last year before he died of tuberculosis, when the writer (played by Sabin Tambrea) meets and falls for Dora Diamant (played by Henriette Confurius). The trailer makes it look very much like a love story, and features a lot of shots of Franz and Dora on the beach. Congratulations especially to the TikTokers who are ravenously horny for his prose.
If you’re looking for the disorientation and alienation that Kafka’s writing is famous for, this might not be your best bet—the “film focuses instead on what the directors’ claim was the happiest period in Kafka’s life.” Makes you wonder what Kafka’s writing would have been like if he were happy all the time: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed into a guy in a really super mood, and hopped out of bed very un-vermin-like,” or “Turns out this trial was a big misunderstanding and everyone apologized to me a whole bunch and promised to reform what they realized was a scary and overly convoluted legal system!”
The film’s release is timed for the 100th year of Kafka’s death, which is today, June 3rd. Keep an eye out for the film to arrive at your theater, and also keep an eye out for the TikTok stans being totally normal about seeing Kafka’s love life on screen.