email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

GOCRITIC! Animateka 2024

GoCritic! Interview: Zane Oborenko • Director of short film Kafka in Love

“All of this is about translation”

by 

- The Latvian animator discusses adaptation and romantic truths in relation to her short film inspired by Franz Kafka’s love letters to writer and journalist Milena Jesenská

GoCritic! Interview: Zane Oborenko • Director of short film Kafka in Love
© Raimonds Krūza

Love is challenging to put into words. Seminal Czech novelist Franz Kafka discovered this when penning letters to Milena Jesenská, a journalist who had translated his story “The Stoker”. The two exchanged words between 1920 and 1923 in what subsequently became a well-chronicled correspondence.

Latvian animator Zane Oborenko has spent the last five years working on a translation of her own, attempting to put that love into images. Inspired by Kafka's letters to Jesenská, Oborenko has crafted an interpretive portrait of a man's fixation on an incomplete image of a woman. Rendered in gorgeous, inky monochrome, it's an emotional, introspective exploration.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)
focusfeatures_conclave_Internal_Cathy

Cineuropa sat down with Oborenko at the 21st Animateka International Animated Film Festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where Kafka in Love played in the Official Competition section. We discussed love from the perspective of each gender, personal journeys and the rich textures of sand animation.

Cineuropa: How did you first encounter Kafka's letters to Milena Jesenská and what drew you to them?
Zane Oborenko:
It was through the English translations. I was attracted by the book’s cover. I had knowledge of Kafka’s literary works, but I didn’t know anything about his personal life. Reading these letters, I recognised parts of my own experiences. I also wanted to understand the male perspective. In the part of the world where I live, men don’t share their emotional experiences like this. Despite having experienced falling in love myself, I didn’t feel I understood what being in love actually is. So the letters provided an interesting point of view.

What was the cover of this edition that intrigued you so?
It was an abstract cover. The designer wrote a description of it, in which he said he was thinking about movement. Animation is also about movement. When you add movement to a still image, it’s particularly effective in reaching your feelings.

What was it about Kafka's writing? Did you find yourself feeling more removed from it or more resonating with it?
The way he writes is something unattainable for me. I wish I could write anything close to it. But elements resonated with me, like the long-distance relationship that they had. Milena was living in Vienna, and he was in Prague. Their relationship was primarily these letters.

Kafka's letters express an inability to fully communicate how he feels in words. You've added images to those words. What do you feel they add to the equation?
All of this is about translation. [Kafka in Love] is my personal translation of how Kafka, in my understanding, felt, and how that feeling affected his body. I focused on expressing that through movement, giving movement to his emotions. When we are alive, everything moves on all levels. Kafka was heavily ill with tuberculosis at that time. Falling in love is a counter-emotion to illness. It was a surge in energy in Kafka, despite his weakness.

I love how you foreground the process of adaptation literally and visually. In the opening shots, letters drift around, accompanied by the sound of pages turning, and they transfigure into the shape of a man. Later, the turning pages become a zoetrope in motion.
What I didn't understand at the beginning, but can see clearly now from Kafka’s letters, is that falling in love is done with a constructed image, a godlike being that does not correspond to the real person. I recognise this in my own experiences, and it’s true for many of us. I saw that Kafka had constructed “Milena” of his own volition, and that is why, [in the film] the character of Milena starts as a still life. These lines gradually come alive. Only at the very end does she become photorealistic. The zoetrope, of course, references film and its creation. In that instance too, we create the reality of our worlds in our minds.

Animation is a fitting medium within which to explore romance, as its processes involve a similar level of obsession and dedication.
Yes, making this film felt like falling in love. The film participated in an animation workshop and forum, and in the forum, it received the main prize for short film. Those were the early stages of love, not just for me, but for people in the industry and the studio. But then the actual process is of course complicated, tedious, long. There are ups and downs as your fantasies clash with reality.

Tell us about the sand animation techniques used here.
The filmmaker who invented sand animation was Caroline Leaf. I really like her film The Owl Who Married a Goose, which is also about romantic relationships. When you work with sand, there is a tendency for films to look similar. To differentiate my film, I used various tools: foam rollers, plastic tools, cut-outs, Coca-Cola bottles. Working with sand allowed me to work with more greys. Before, I had mainly worked with black-and-white silhouettes. I wanted to challenge myself.

Sand is an interesting parallel too, because it slips through our fingers. We can't quite hold on to it.
There’s an element of touch. Nowadays, we write digital letters, so there’s no element of touch to a letter. But, in Kafka’s time, they were exchanging physical letters. He wrote about how he would put her letters in his pocket, feel them, imagining the contents. The element of touch is important, and it was another reason to make the film with sand.

Kafka’s letters are addressed to Milena. Who is this film addressed to?
In this digital age, we face a lot of the same issues that Kafka and Milena had: long-distance communication, and the fact that falling in love is more about yourself. It’s difficult to understand and to accept because we feel like the other person is the one who gives us this love, but actually it’s our own. I hope that knowledge can spare some people heartbreak.

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy