Facets of Kafka
Ottomar Domnick's experimental bravura piece turns the increasing alienation and paranoia of a man in the urban reality of West Germany’s post war economic miracle into a profoundly Kafkaesque experience. We are showing a 35mm film print with soft-titles and an introduction by Martin Brady.
Jonas by Ottomar Domnick is not a Kafka adaptation. It is part of this small series because of its strongly Kafkaesque features. The focus is on a man who feels persecuted and at the mercy of unknown powers, isolated from his fellow human beings and threatened by his metropolitan surroundings. The man named in the title is Jonas, a print shop worker who spontaneously buys a new hat because this is now the social norm: “You don't go without a hat anymore!”. And after his new hat is stolen, he steals another one. This stolen hat triggers a lot, evokes memories of war and feelings of guilt, becomes a threat that cannot be shaken off and had therefore best be returned to its unknown owner. Jonas wanders through the hostile city, partly hunted, partly searching, increasingly desperate, increasingly alone, as he also eludes a budding relationship with a woman.
"The bravest, loneliest and most unrepeatable German film of our time. No other German film for years and years has possessed similar visual artistry,” wrote critic Gunter Groll in the Süddeutsche Zeitung in 1957. Groll's enthusiastic review alludes to the film’s highly experimental aesthetics which turn its essentially sparse plot into a deeply Kafkaesque experience. Filmed in high-contrast black and white and from unusual perspectives, the urban architecture appears abstract, inorganic and inhuman. The filming location of Stuttgart becomes a symbol of the modern metropolis characterized by consumerism and control. This impression is significantly reinforced by the complex soundtrack. Hans Magnus Enzensberger, at the time radio editor at Süddeutscher Rundfunk in Stuttgart, provided the polyphonic commentary, including advertising slogans, headlines, statistics and official statements. The warm jazz sounds of Duke Ellington contrast with the music of Schönberg student Winfried Zillig, which is interspersed with electronic sounds.
In 1957,
Jonas was an absolute exception in post-war West German film, and it may be significant that his director Ottomar Domnick did not come from the film industry but was a successful specialist in neurology and psychiatry. At the same time, he was a connoisseur and collector of modern art, organized contemporary music concerts and was well connected and respected in the Stuttgart cultural scene. In
Jonas, ultimately the portrait of a disturbed psyche, Domnick was able to incorporate both his medical and aesthetic interests and knowledge. It was his first feature film, and despite its formally challenging aesthetics, it was surprisingly successful. It screened in competition at the International Film Festival in Berlin in 1957, received German Film Awards in Silver for Best Music and Best Cinematography (1957), the German Film Critics' Award for Best Picture Design (1957) and achieved good audience figures. However, a further feature film remained unsuccessful and after three experimental short films and a cinematic self-portrait, Domnick's cinematic career came to an end in 1979, and even
Jonas fell into oblivion, remaining a little-known and little-shown key work of German film to this day.
Jonas. West Germany 1953. 35mm, black & white, 81 min. German with English subtitles.
Director, Screenplay, Production, Editing: Ottomar Domnick. With Robert Graf, Dieter Eppler, Elisabeth Bohaty.
Please note that we do not show any advertising and that the programme starts on time.
Martin Brady is Emeritus Reader in German and Film Studies at King’s College London. He has published on Brechtian cinema, documentary and experimental film, music, literature, the visual arts, Jewish exile architects, disability, foraging, and ordinariness. He also works as a translator and interpreter.
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