This Franz Kafka story is a study on what can happen when you put a psychopath in charge of a process (or country) in which they have unfettered power and can make decisions over life and death with impunity. The story deals with some heavy themes: justice, due process, capital punishment, torture, sadistic voyeurism, and the difficulty of institutional change (even if for the good!). Central to all this is the “machine”, which seems to know that its time has come and chooses to self-destruct along with the only person left who cares about it.
Original Text / PDF / Audio (11,700 words)
Video Version
This 2013 film adaption from Forrest Rice has attracted (IMHO) unjust criticism on YouTube for the way the story has been interpreted. As with his film version of Kafka’s The Judgement, Rice is not afraid to put his own stamp on characterization. Rather than portraying the unnamed Officer as a psychopathic sadist, Rice depicts him in a Monty Python-like absurdist manner. Both approaches are valid in conveying the central theme of institutional brutality, and I suspect that Kafka himself would have preferred the latter. Watch and enjoy!