The Trial (1962)

In January and February, the new Uitkijk series is dedicated to Invisible Forces. For this program, we have selected films in which characters are confronted with elusive, all-encompassing forces that shape their lives in different ways. The films move between horror, magical realism, and existential nightmares, showing how people struggle, falter, and sometimes break under the weight of the unknown.

Orson Welles' feverish interpretation of Kafka's ‘The Trial’ (1925). Josef K. (Anthony Perkins) is dragged from his bed by agents, arrested in total uncertainty, and accused of an unnamed crime. The trial he enters is like quicksand: every move he makes only brings him closer to conviction. In a dizzying labyrinth of cold apartment blocks and claustrophobic office spaces, Josef struggles to plead his innocence as the day of his execution approaches. The bureaucratic trap becomes an absurdist nightmare.

In the astonishing THE TRIAL (1962), Orson Welles demonstrates his keen eye for visual drama. In this hysterical story of suffocating bureaucracy, Welles was also able to express his own critique of the film industry. After his exile from Hollywood during the ‘anti-communist’ McCarthy era, he saw THE TRIAL as a deeply personal response to all forms of totalitarian oppression, including the blacklist. For this reason, Welles considered THE TRIAL one of his best films.