Cinema: In the Toils of the Law

The Trial. "The right perception of any matter and a misunderstanding of the same matter do not wholly exclude one another." This slyly smiling sentence, inserted by Franz Kafka in the final pages of The Trial, holds a subtle point at the throat of any man so rash as to interpret the most eerie and profound of all the fables written by the apocalyptic insurance clerk of Prague. Is The Trial a psychotic nightmare, the case history of a persecution complex, an allegory on the theme of justice, a prophetic vision of the totalitarian state, an analysis of Man's relation to...

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