The Glory of Life

Judith Kaufmann and Georg Maas's 2024 German film covers the last year of Franz Kafka's life. In the summer of 1923 he meets Dora Diamant at a seaside resort; tubercular, dependent on his family and having never allowed himself intimacy, he begins living with someone for the first time. The film looks at the writer's daily life rather than his work. Kafka here is not a literary figure but a man who eats, coughs and worries about money. That choice pulls the narrative away from the biographical template. It is adapted from Michael Kumpfmüller's novel. Henriette Confurius and Sabin Tambrea lead. The cinematography uses the light of the period plainly; Kaufmann had long worked as a cinematographer. Who it's for: those who like literary biography and quiet period drama. Who it's not for: viewers expecting analysis of Kafka's writing; the film barely enters the texts.