Reader, I am here to remind you that there are times in this life of ours when the world is cold and dead. Specifically, I am here to remind your that those times are all times; that nothing is what it seems, except when it is; that the mundanities of our existence that tether us to the meaningless movement on the surface of one orb as it circles around another are, in fact, the only real things, and also the least real.
Mostly, though, I’m here to tell you to watch this:
One of the weird and disturbing Franz Kafka’s weirdest and most disturbing stories, “A Country Doctor” is somehow even weirder here, after Kōji Yamamura got his hands on it. The Japanese—slowly, methodically chanted by a ghostly chorus—somehow makes Kafka’s original tale seem even eerier, and the art, uh, speaks for itself. It’s almost impossible not to think of Kōbō Abe—Japan’s answer to Kafka no matter what that one Haruki Murakami book will have you believe—while watching it. It’s riveting and horrifying at once.
Kafka would be proud.
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