The biopic is such a staid genre that any attempt at doing something unique with its form is cause for excitement, if not outright celebration.

Franz is that sort of daring endeavor, investigating the life of famed writer and novelist Franz Kafka through a kaleidoscopic lens that allows fiction and reality, memory, and fantasy, and the past, present, and future to freely commingle like intertwining streams.

The follow-up to her harrowing 2023 refugee drama Green Border, acclaimed Polish director Agnieszka Holland’s latest strives to capture the texture and emotion of—and to conjure the forces at play in—the iconic author’s life and work. There are a few slight stumbles, but in terms of ambition and bravura alone, it remains one of the early standouts of this year’s Toronto Internationa

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