Kafka

Season

2024

7.2

The story of Franz Kafka's life from different perspectives. Presenting his difficult relationship with his domineering father Hermann, his deep friendship with Max Brod, and his various love affairs.

Episode List

S1 • E1

Max

The first episode is about Kafka's friend Max Brod. He is a recognized writer, full of energy and ideas, but his biggest project is to gain fame for his friend Franz. This is a kind of reverse Amadeus constellation: Brod tries with all his might to help his difficult friend, who, however, never returns artistic recognition or support to his most loyal supporter. Brod is a manic womanizer, always involved in multiple affairs. He is a warm-hearted person and the center of energy and power in the story. Unfortunately, he is not a good writer - a fact that Kafka is well aware of.

S1 • E2

Felice

Kafka's fiancee Felice Bauer, cousin of Max Brod, is bombarded with letters. They get engaged without knowing each other well. Their long, complicated relationship sees engagements broken off and renewed before ending.

S1 • E3

Family

Kafka's turbulent relationship with his authoritarian father Hermann, his unsent accusatory letter to him, his ties to Zionism, friendship with actor Yitzhak Löwy, and the inspiration behind his seminal work "The Metamorphosis."

S1 • E4

Bureau

Kafka's career as an insurance lawyer, where he excels but finds the workplace suffocating. During WWI, his superiors exempt him from the draft, recognizing his indispensability, contrasting with the bureaucratic nightmares in his writings

S1 • E5

Milena

The fifth episode is about Kafka's short but intense relationship with the writer Milena Jesenská, who recognizes his genius in a way that only Max Brod has ever done. During a long afternoon in the Vienna woods, they go through all the phases of a passionate love affair - until they finally separate.

S1 • E6

Dora

The first half of the last episode focuses on the vacation of Kafka, who was already seriously ill with tuberculosis, in the spa town of Spindleruv Mlýn in the Giant Mountains, which in his imagination is transformed into the dark and mythical village of his last and most famous novel, "The Castle". But he also meets his last great love, Dora Diamant. After he finally escapes the hated office, the two live in Berlin for a few months and spend his last days together in a sanatorium outside Vienna.