K.aF.ka- fragment

In 1912, Franz Kafka wrote about his encounter with Felice: ‘She sat at the table. I was not in the least curious about who she was, but immediately regarded her as something self-evident. A bony, empty face, that openly expressed its emptiness. A nose that looks broken, lank, unattractive hair. When I took my chair, I took a better look at her for the first time and when I sat down, I had already drawn my indisputable conclusion.’ What follows is a passionate exchange of letters that lasted for years. Hundreds of letters and only a few days together.These letters did not interest Frosch so much because of the intimate glimpse of Kafka’s life, but for the light they throw on his work, without themselves having any lofty literary value. Kafka was not just possessed by Felice, but also by writing, by language. ‘This can’t go on like this, we hurt each other with these letters. Two letters a day is insanity. They do not create closeness, only a mixture of presence and absence that is unbearable.’In Frosh’ film, Kafka and Felice are more literary characters than historic figures and the images accompanying text fragments are more associative that illustrative. Moreover, they are not tied to the time when Kafka wrote his letters. Sometimes they resemble home-movies from the fifties, with a course grain and from a shaky camera angle, sometimes they have a dreamy, Impressionist character..