Giant cockroaches, a confusing labyrinth of castle corridors and terrifying scarred ghosts. It could all be the result of taking medication – or it could also be a terrible reality… The horror film Bitter Muse by Czech director, screenwriter and artist Emil Křižka plays with the idea that the disturbing scenes in Franz Kafka’s books were actually lived by their author.
Like Kafka’s most famous novel The Metamorphosis, The Bitter Muse begins in bed. However, no one turned into a bug here. The young man Franz (the reader guesses that it is Kafka based on the obvious similarity to the writer’s life) is bedridden. In addition to his weak lungs, he is also troubled by his father’s poisonous remarks and his sisters’ taunts. But the horror atmosphere winks at the reader from the first page. At first, the protagonist sees only dark shadows. They later take on human form. And then the crazy merry-go-round of horrible fantasies starts in full swing.
The Bitter Muse is definitely not a read for the faint of heart. The book is reminiscent of the legendary Alice in Wonderland. But instead of a white rabbit and a caterpillar with a pipe, there are violent scenes with an electric cable in the bathtub, the ghost of a woman with a burning head or disturbing sexual desires. One shocking scene follows another, and thanks to the author’s almost cinematic style, the reader sees this entire horror ride before his eyes as if in a cinema. After all, Emil Křižka is a director, and his cinematic handwriting is well known in the book.
“Getting out of trauma is good therapy. Better than committing those things,” declares Řehoř, the protagonist’s muse. But when a sick mind wins over common sense, Franz discovers (and the reader along with him) that distinguishing reality from fantasy is harder than he thought. One should not approach the book as a classic story with a fixed structure. If you are scared enough to start reading The Bitter Muse, accept the fact that this book follows the logic of nightmares. And in those, anything is possible – telling the story backwards, being trapped in your own body or meeting your own sister’s perverted twin.
The Bitter Muse is a truly raw and shocking book, which offers a kind of counterpoint to the frugal and civil language of Franz Kafka’s insurance official. Get started and hope you don’t wake up in the morning in the form of an insect – or worse, in the body of a writer…
Rating: 85%
Emil Křižka
A bitter muse
Publisher: Rosier, 2022
Number of pages: 248