“The Glory of Life” in the cinema: Franz Kafka’s last love

The glory of life, the celebration of it, is not necessarily associated with the author of the century Franz Kafka, neither with his literature nor with him as a person. He suffered from tuberculosis and died from it on June 3, 1924 at the age of less than 41.

And yet, in October 1921, Kafka wrote in his diary: “It is very conceivable that the glory of life lies around everyone and always in all its fullness, but hidden, in the depths, invisible, very far. But she doesn’t lie there, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you call her by the right word, by the right name, then she will come. That is the essence of magic, which does not create, but calls.”

The Berlin writer Michael Kumpfmüller put this quote in front of his celebrated docu-fictional novel about Kafka’s last love a year before his death, the relationship with the then 25-year-old Dora Diamant, and took the title from it. The way Kumpfmüller tells his novel, quite easily and with a certain buoyancy, Kafka actually seems to have experienced a somewhat carefree happiness in the last year of his life. The glory of Franz Kafka’s life came with Dora Diamant, who was born in Brzezin, Poland in 1898 and came from a very conservative Jewish-Orthodox family.

Judith Kaufmann and Georg Maas also convey this passing-final lightheartedness in Kafka’s life in their film adaptation. The shots from the beaches of the Baltic Sea are flooded with sunshine as Kafka (Sabin Tambrea) and Dora (Henriette Confurius) get to know each other in Graal-Müritz in the summer of 1923; the wind ruffles his and her hair when they first get closer to each other on a bench at the Telaraña game. And in general, this summer with the children from the Jewish People’s Home never seems to end.

Small chamber play

At least Kafka wants to continue it and, despite his progressive tuberculosis, does not want to return to Prague, but instead tries again to live in Berlin with Dora. While the film takes on something of a chamber play from this point on, Judith Kaufmann’s camera continues to get very close to the (almost too beautiful) faces of the two, especially in the darker moments. Little by little you forget that there are two historical figures at work here, one of them the greatest German-speaking writer of the 20th century.

In this way, “The Glory of Life” tells the story of an essentially random pair of lovers, of a relationship in which there are equally happy and tragic moments. Ultimately, to return to the psyche of Kafka: of a writer who no longer fears loss of self in a marriage-like union – after those of Felice Bauer and Milena Jesenská. Who is no longer afraid of his freedom. And who knows how to separate writing and eros.

The girl and the doll

Although the film focuses entirely on the love relationship, it does not lose sight of the true biographical background, but does so subtly. Max Brod (Manuel Rubey), who comes across as extremely likeable here, tells Kafka that the Berlin publisher Die Schmiede wants to publish a volume of his stories. A telephone call with the father and also the conversations with the sister prove to be problematic; Once Kafka reads the beginning of his story “The Metamorphosis” to Dora (which wouldn’t have been absolutely necessary). And the landlady of the Steglitz apartment watches over the couple like a hawk. (Kafka and Dora Diamant moved into a second Berlin apartment on Grunewaldstrasse.)

And the little girl who Kafka met in a park in Steglitz and who told him crying that she had lost her doll also appears in the film, but as Dora’s protégé from the Jewish children’s home.

Kaufmann and Maas forego the hectic changes of location shortly before Kafka’s death; a sanatorium will have to suffice. And here too there is another enchanting scene between the already speechless Kafka and Dora. The fact that he breathes out “Dora” even on his deathbed is perhaps too much of a good thing. But let this fiction be granted to this beautiful, sometimes touching and largely kitsch-free film.