Samsa
2019 · 11m · España
Directed by Enrique García
Genres: dark comedy, drama, fantasy
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, surreal
After arguing with the family he supports and who only give him headaches, Gregor Samsa goes to sleep and wakes the next morning transformed into a huge insect, changing his relationship with his family and the world for three days.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
García could've made a faithful Kafka adaptation and put us all to sleep, but instead he leans into the absurdist comedy of it—the family dynamics become farcical, the insect-ness is almost beside the point, and the whole thing gets weird in ways the source material deliberately resists.
This is a literalist's reading of Kafka that paradoxically becomes its own formal statement: by playing the premise straight and investing in the domestic texture, García reveals what the parable was always about, positioning the film within a lineage of Kafkaesque cinema that privileges tonal consistency over spectacle.
The real move here is the sound design during the transformation sequence—that wet, organic squelch-and-silence that makes the grotesque felt rather than shown—and it's that one choice that lets a modest production punch into genuine body horror without budget or gore.