The Trial (1962)

I love Orson Welles — as a director, an actor, and public persona — to the extent that every time I watch something new of his I expect to be astonished in some way, which would be kind of unfair except that he literally never fails. An incredible post-Holocaust, post-HUAC statement about how the law exists to dehumanize, whose central figure is played by Anthony Perkins at his wormiest — a man who is a victim of the system but who clearly believes in its application to others, whose faith in “justice” is so absolute that it renders him incapable of action and unable to see that he’s drowning. Distressing that nobody in the movie sees the need for abolishing the law, but Welles does, of course, and he makes his argument with his usual flair, creating a text as horrifyingly dense as the source material, a labyrinth no rat can escape and few find comfort in. A fuckin’ masterpiece.