The Trial

Office worker Josef K. is arrested one morning completely unexpectedly and without any reason being given. Even during his gruelling trial, no one explains the charges to him and no help can be expected from his lawyer. The accused seems to be trapped in a surreal nightmare from which there is no awakening.

THE TRIAL is Orson Welles' interpretation of Franz Kafka's world-famous surrealist novel. His cinematic realisation of the narrative absurdity is outstanding, with Anthony Perkins, Jeanne Moreau and Romy Schneider in the leading roles. Inspired by the empty Gare d'Orsay railway station in Paris, where much of the filming took place, Welles develops a visual language that captures the hopelessness of people waiting in the battle against bureaucracy - the bureaucracy that the director sees as the "monstrous protagonist" in Kafka's unfinished novel.