Druckbolzen

This is Kafkaesque in tone and spirit, which may be misleading as the only K is Franz himself and Druckbolzen is the work of writer/director Benni Biez.

There is A Building. There is The Man. They come together for the purpose of work. The Man is interviewed by A Talking Face. The words are Blah Blah, but The Man allows the flicker of a smile to crease his lips. He is offered A Job.

Inside a room, known as The Room, whey-faced men in drab suits sit in cubicles pushing paper about. Printed forms appear on his desk through an orifice. He does meaningless things and slots the paper back through a separate orifice.

Over on the other side of The Room, he can see A Frightened Man who has fallen behind with his tasks. Punishment is swift and terrible. The Man returns to his desk and works doubly fast.

Filmed in black-and-white, there are moments when The Room and A Talking Face and The Frightened Man might have been CGI animations, created to look not quite normal and, therefore, disturbing, in the way that Caro and Jeunet (The City of Lost Children) does.

Alienation is to communication what fascism is to society. As with the writings of Franz K, there are no conclusions.

There is The Plot, there is The Place, there are The People. Fear is the driving force. And yet, no one asks, what fear? Why me?

There is no Me. There is only The Man and The Room.