Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life… and Other Strange Tales (1997)

Posted on Jan 25, 2006 under Comedy, Horror |

Directed by Peter Capaldi, Richard D’Alessio, Don Scardino, and John D. Allen
Written by Peter Capaldi, Richard D’Alessio, Jeffrey Berman, Richard Waugh, David Huband, Lewis Black, and Wade Steadman
Starring
- Richard E. Grant
- Richard Waugh
- David Huband
- Joe Grifasi
- Larry Pine
- James Mayberry

By happenstance, several filmmakers have contacted me of late to see if I will accept a screener of their short film for review. I almost always decline, as I can only rarely generate what I consider a full-length review from a short; even those few shorts I have reviewed, such as The Confetti Brothers (2001), have been at least half an hour in length; I hate to tell you this, but your twenty-minute short film simply won’t find a home at Cold Fusion Video Reviews. Problem is that most of movie-watching America is the same way; they don’t watch short films. They watch TV shows, and they watch features, but your short film isn’t going to get in front of the eyeballs of the viewing public. Nobody will release a mass-market DVD of a short.

They will, however, release the occasional anthology feature, which means you’re going to have to stitch your short together with a couple of others to get it out there onto the rental shelves. Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short in 1995, but there was still no way it would have gotten any sort of broad distribution without the “Other Strange Tales” mentioned, the three other short films which follow it in video. And that’s good news for me, because even an award-winning twenty-minute short is still a twenty-minute short, and thus nigh unreviewable on its own.

Can’t use that caption… or that one… nope, not that one either…

But though it’s accompanied by its fellows, Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life (written and directed by Peter Capaldi) is very clearly the star of the show here, and it’s not hard to tell why: The title alone is brilliant. And the film, while possibly not as brilliant as the title alone, is well made and fun without being long enough to wear out what is essentially a one-note gag.

The premise is simply this: Franz Kafka (Richard E. Grant, looking as sickly as only he can look) sits in his bare garret apartment, a pen and paper in front of him, trying to figure out the first line of his current story: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning, he found himself transformed into a gigantic…” What? Banana? Kangaroo? It’s a set that owes as much to Throw Momma From the Train (1987) or the Sesame Street “Muppet News Flash” routines with the frustrated composer as to anything in either Kafka or Capra, but it’s funny nonetheless. Compounding the problem are the many interruptions, including the novelty and costume saleswoman, the unsettling knife sharpener looking for his “little friend,” and the flat full of young nubile sisters holding a musical Christmas celebration directly beneath Kafka.

“Is this supposed to accompany that last screencap?”

Granted, the only correspondences to It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) are forced and almost tacked on; it would take a true cinematic genius to craft a film which took full advantage of the title. But there are too few comedies aimed squarely at the English Lit geek crowd, so I’ll take what I can get.

The second film, “Seven Gates” (written by Richard D’Alessio, Jeffrey Berman, Richard Waugh, and David Huband, directed by Richard D’Alessio), is a very different slice-of-life narrative involving two grown brothers on their way to their parent’s house for Christmas. By their nature, slice-of-life narratives are damned hard to critique, since things like “plot” and “resolution” are intentionally left out, but this one provides an intriguing glimpse into a set of lives informed by events outside the narrative that are only barely referenced. Coffee-fiend and businessman David (David Huband) is a go-getting efficiency-freak, despite the fact that he seems only barely competent in his chosen pursuits; younger brother Daryl (Richard Waugh) is less focused and more laid back, willing to wear a bright red parka in public and to consider becoming a farmer in order to save the family farm.

Gates… locks… keys… There must be SOMETHING symbolic going on here, right?

Even as slices-of-life go, though, this one’s inconclusive. Perhaps purposely so, to wit: The title, “Seven Gates,” refers to the series of mismatched gates which the brothers must open and drive through in order to reach the house, set far back from the road. But by the end of the film, I had only counted five.

The third film, “The Deal” (written by Lewis Black, directed by Don Scardino), gives the title film a run for its money in sheer highbrow lunacy. It concerns two men, Boular (Joe Grifasi) and Veneer (Larry Pine), who are at the tiptop of the business world. Literally. They meet at Veneer’s palatial home, a room so high that birds lose consciousness, and discuss… a deal. A big business deal. Massive. Packaging. Product. Market penetration. It’s a succession of the worst business cliches delivered in the character of two men who, having devoted themselves entirely to their fulfillment, are the perfect embodiment of the free-market anti-Christ. Their dialogue is almost wholly bon mots of capitalist misanthropy: “Product is an anachronism of a free economy.” “Bad publicity is great publicity.” And my favorite, “I have no interest in people; humans only tend to get in the way.” These are men who are so drunk on their own power that Veneer has had his balls replaced with those of a sixteen-year-old boy from the third world (”big as grapefruits”), and Boular has a gold scrotum.

And all that comes before they start dancing.

The Great Whoopee Cushion Challenge… has begun!

I want to say that the script sounds improvised, but that’s not quite right; the actors are obviously well-rehearsed and polished. Instead, it sounds like what would happen if, say, Chris and I collaborated, each of us writing one character and playing off the other’s lines. It’s raunchy in an erudite way, and mixes hasrdnosed expediency with a skewed sense of whimsy. Alas, it lacks a nifty-keen title, so it gets relegated to the “…And Other Strange Tales” role.

Finally, we have “Mr. McAllister’s Cigarette Holder” (written by Wade Steadman, directed by John D. Allen), a sepia-toned setpiece which isn’t as freeform as “Seven Gates,” but which takes a certain loose liberty with the idea of story. Mr. McAllister (James Mayberry) is a rural southerner who works as a… what the hell are they doing, anyway? Grading roads with their hands? Anyway, his sole affectation in life is a red cigarette holder he found on the road one day, and which he treats with great, though understated, affection.

One day, walking home from work, he meets an albino woman named Dora (Nora Heflin) waiting for a bus that might never come, and invites her to spend the night at his place. That single platonic sleepover becomes a years-long relationship that eventually blossoms into something akin to love — a low-key, comfy sort of love, anyway, bred of familiarity and natural courtesy.

Mr. McAllister, hardboiled redneck.

There’s a definite theme here, as accomodatingly stated by McAllister: That unique objects (and by extension, people) are of greater value than mass quantities, and “When I got my choice, one of a thing’s what I want.” The narrative unrolls at a relaxed, “rural” pace, and the heavy southern accents stay just on the safe side of the line into parody. Unfortunately, the conclusion is marred by staging which obscures the action, leaving me wondering what I just missed that was supposed to bring closure.

So there you have it. Four short films, strung together not by an commonality of personnel, but by professionalism, and a will to create light (if not necessarily humorous) but literate short films, with stories that couldn’t be told at feature-length.