K (Bayaneruul), a land surveyor, arrives at a small town in Mongolia to start his job - but the locals are not particularly fond of outsiders and at first want to get right rid of K by just telling him he can't stay without permission from the Castle that rules over the village, but at the same time he can't get to the Castle because ... a reason is never given, but it soon turns out that K was actually hired by the Castle to do the job - but while he's soon equipped with two assistants (Altanochir, Zandaraa), he's never told what exactly his job is, and not only does the Castle seem out of reach but also his direct superior Minister Klamm (Darhad Erdenibulag) evades him, so much so that K starts an affair with Klamm's mistress Frieda (Jula) to get his attention, but to no avail. The townsfolks in the meantime show more and more hostility towards K, who eventually is summoned to the Mayor (Oyunsang) who tells him outright they have no use for a land surveyor here and he actually tried to tell the Castle - but the document got mislaid. K gets demoted to the position of school janitor, even if the school doesn't need a janitor, and while he does everything to fix things, only more and more bueraucratic hurdles are thrown into his path and things go worryingly downhill ...

Even though set in Mongolia, K is a rather verbatim adaptation of Franz Kafka's The Castle, and the Mongolian cast and landscapes actually fit the story rather well. That said, however great a novel The Castle might be, the film is not without its shortcomings: Basically, the novel is rather episodic in structure, and while this works well due to Kafka's clever writing, some episodes just seem to lead nowhere on the screen. Also the novel is unfinished which means K's ending is rather unsatisfying and random. But that said, K is still a fascinating movie that quite obviously understands its source material quite well and manages to translate it into its completely different locations rather beautifully - it's just not a perfect movie.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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