Metamorphosis

Renowned Russian theater director Valery Fokin (director of the Meyerhold Center in Moscow) has transformed Kafka’s The Metamorphosis into an eerie and stunningly beautiful film. Evgeny Mironov turns in an unforgettable performance as Gregor Samsa, the middle-level clerk who awakes one morning to find he has changed into a monstrous insect. Fokin, who adapted the story for the stage in 1995, masterfully shows the alienation and profound sadness that pervades Kafka’s story, and the class tensions that gripped Prague in the early 1900s. Actor Mironov’s physical mimicry is phenomenal; his transformation, without benefit of special effects, is completely repellent and utterly plausible. After his family and employer discover his transformation, Gregor is left to wander the walls and ceiling of his room. Because of his lost income, his family is forced to take in lodgers, whom Fokin recasts as Orthodox Jews. Much has been written about Kafka’s Judaism -- including his own insights in his scathing Letter to His Father -- and its influence on both the form of his writing and his fascination with otherness and suffering. Kafka’s masterful story and Fokin’s film are both universal in appeal, but the Festival’s Jewish context highlights the mystical and political subtleties of these works. Metamorphosis is a breathtakingly shot, arrestingly intelligent adaptation of one of the great stories of modern literature. "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect... His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes." -- from The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Valery Fokin, born in 1946, People’s artist of Russia, Government’s prizes winner, honored art worker of Poland, Artistic and General Director of Meyerhold Centre. Having graduated from Schukin School belonging to Vakhtangov Theatre, Valery Fokin had been working as director in Moscow Theatre "Sovremennik". Through this period he dealt with literature’s production of Nabokov, Vampilov, Rozov, Olbi and other masters of Russian and foreign dramatic plays. In 1985 Fokin headed Ermolova Moscow Theatre. His first performance made the theatre one of the most popular in Moscow. In his creative work Valery Fokin appeals to the sharpest, "closed" and "painful" themes of the past and present. His performances either modern or classic are characterized by volume and scale of stage’s metaphor, sharpness of artistic thinking, theatrically yearning for detailed psychological analysis of the characters. Performances he directed are staged in Poland, USA, Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, France, Finland, Bulgaria. His performances differ from others not only by skill of production but also by original interpretation of well known images. He changes direction of creative search setting up new esthetics. The performances "The Hotel Room in the Town NN" N. Gogol, "Metamorphosis" F. Kafka, "Tatiana Repina" A. Chekhov were generally recognized by Russian and world’s public. Besides bright entertainment, dynamic, paradoxically the performances are characterized by successive search for new theatrical language. The said enables to consider Fokin as one of the leaders of European stage. His performances of last years.