Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

GurlyIamBeach Instant Favorite.

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Verity Robins Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Das Schloß" or "The Castle" is a German/Austrian co-production from almost 20 years ago and writer and director Michael Haneke made this one the very same year he released the original "Funny Games". For this one here, he adapted the work of famous author Franz Kafka and I guess this is also the main problem I had with this one. The material just wasn't interesting enough to me. I quite like some of Haneke's other stuff, but this one not so much. He cast many people that also appeared in other works of his, such as lead actor Ulrich Mühe, Susanne Lothar and Frank Giering, sadly all of them dies untimely deaths. "The Castle" is a television production that runs for over 2 hours and I cannot deny it dragged on many occasions.I think the acting and direction in here is pretty good, as usual with Haneke/Mühe etc. but the base material just did not do too much for me. I was very bored by the story and the massive runtime certainly did not help at all. It is a very bleak and atmospheric watch as you are used to if you have seen some of Haneke's other works, but this alone cannot make up for all the other flaws in this film. I personally do not recommend checking it out unless you are a huge fan of Kafka's work, this one here or just in general. Everybody else should stay away. Thumbs down.

imdb-390-593686 I really like Amour and White Ribbon but this is utter claptrap. So boring and such a dull story line which abruptly ends without any conclusion. Visually it's a bore. Hitchcock would have called this "Photographs of people talking". The film is heavy on dialogue. There was little point in making this into a film as 99% of the information is given through dialogue and narration and the story might as well have been a radio play. Don't waste 2 hours of your life.So if it is supposed to be some poetic reflection on life or a particular issue then it needs to be clearer. In my opinion a film should be understandable in its own right. If I need to read Kafka in order to watch the film, then that is a failure in my opinion.

Martin Teller I'm crazy about Kafka. THE TRIAL is my favorite by Welles, and Juracek's homage Joseph KILLIAN is brilliant as well. So the thought of Haneke directing The Castle seemed like a promising idea. And he gets some of it right. The story is very faithful... obviously certain omissions are necessary, but the gist of it is there, and the scenes generally play out as they do in the novel. The long scenes juxtaposed with abrupt time cuts do a good job of evoking the unusual rhythms of Kafka. And Haneke knows better than to try to make K. an entirely sympathetic character. But it doesn't feel quite right. I have mixed feelings about the aesthetic. The drab palette is appropriate, but I couldn't help thinking that black and white would have suited the material better. And the voice-over felt entirely unnecessary to me. The novel is told in the third person voice, but it feels first person. Having some narrator chime in every few minutes didn't add anything. And it just didn't seem absurd enough. Perhaps it's a book that doesn't condense well, because you don't get the sense of K.'s epic, labyrinthine struggle. But it's a good effort.

Michael Fleischhacker This is an extremely unusual adaptation of an unfinished novel. The breaks in Kafka's manuscript are actually left in the movie. This is surrealism to the max!