children on a country road

In Kaurismaki's Le Havre Elina Salo reads to Kati Outinen, while she is ill in hospital, from an unusual text: Kafka's Children on a Country Road. Specifically she reads the concluding lines 'just think they never sleep...because they are fools'. Now Kaurismaki's work abounds in references to writers, often French; eg Micheaux and Prevert; but does the Kafka quote denote more than referentiality?  Benjamin discusses a clan of sleepless types who occur through Kafka: students, assistants, waiters, residents of the city in the south. About the faces of these figures he notes that Kafka says 'they seem to be those of grown ups, perhaps even students'. Kaurismaki does not derive films from Kafka but the 'grown up' look of the students may be very similar to Kati Outinen's persistent unblinking stare.