Spalovac mrtvol

I saw rather a lot of East European 60s cinema back in the day but had never heard of this one. Seems it only came to light recently so that explains that because otherwise I was bound to have stumbled upon it as it is such an amazing film. From the stunning opening credits, beyond the startlingly close-up shots of a family visit to the zoo, and on as the cremator of the title goes from seeming curious, to creepy and downright cuckoo, and worse. Spellbinding imagery plus the doings of this extremely worrying man hold ones attention throughout as this caring family man leads us and everybody else to the abyss. There are so many ways in which the director ensures that we follow his narrative flow despite ourselves. This is a very uncomfortable film to watch. The way the cremator has to touch everybody, dead and alive, the way he must comb his hair after that of a corpse and then his own family but there is so much worse to come.

Many reviews seem to miss the complicated layers of Czech culture, and hence view The Cremator only through western lens.

The politics and historical background of this film play heavily into the story. The director Juraj Herz had been a prisoner in a concentration camp and thankfully survived the Holocaust and went on to make movies. So the film was about the Nazi occupation made by a Jewish director who survived the Holocaust and later filmed during Czechoslovakia's oppressive communist regime (following the Prague Spring). Quite a complicated layer for Americans to swallow. The Czech people are a cynical bunch and understandably trust no type of government. Their culture and worldview (much like that of eastern Europe) remain a mystery to most Americans.

With that, he film was neither horrific nor depressing. It was a wicked comedy-Czech style, if you will. The cinematography was heavily stylized, almost Kafkaesque, and revealed a theatrical satire with odd moments of humor. The idea that this ordinary man with a mundane job could morph into a führer-like character illustrates perfectly the Czech skepticism toward humanity. The movie exposes the stupidity of people and politics, and its fatalistic outlook results in a clever tragicomedy.

From time to time there are films of timeless quality. Born out of the chaos of a specific historical situation, which manage to find images, formulate words and condense signs. From the vortex of the Eastern European uproar of the late 1960s, marked by the trauma of World War II, The Cremator is one such work.

This Czech film delves deep into political horror and psychological study drama. Its a satirical, gloomy vision of the unhealthy consequences of totalitarianism exemplified in Nazi paranoia. Blood, race, nationality, ideology and party above family, friendship, with death as liberation/elimination.

The movie has an extraordinary atmosphere to it, it takes the shape of a walking nightmare, with a gloomy and ghostly musical accompaniment, vast use of wide angle photo to distort the images with surreal perspectives. Which provokes both fascination and disgust.

The Cremator is not perfect, but the rather odd mixure of the creative photo, exceptional story, marvelous story telling and superb performance by Rudolf Hrusinsky, results in a timeless movie gem.

This film is hypnotic. The soothing voice of the lead character, coming out of his cherubic always sweetly smiling face, almost lulls the viewer into a serene calm--if not for the fact that we know in our guts that this is the calm a cobra induces in its prey before the kill. This is, after all, Czechoslovakia on the eve of being taken over by Hitler, and the main character runs a crematorium. We know what is coming next. And yet, we cannot take our eyes from the screen; we are filled with foreboding.

Like the best of Fellini, the director, Juraj Herz, frames virtually every scene perfectly; a collection of stills taken from this black-and-white masterpiece could fill a photographic art gallery with a distinguished collection indeed.

How could the holocaust ever have happened in the middle of the most "civilized" culture in the world, the cradle of elegant music? How could rational "civilized" human beings have abetted this monstrosity? This film provides a fable that can help us answer these most important questions. But do not think this movie is some boring treatise on the banal roots of evil. It is a very entertaining horror film that will keep you spellbound.

Hrusinsky is quite good in this one as the Tibetan Buddhism obsessed, German cremator Kropfkringl who dreams of sending people to their afterlife and reincarnation while becoming a "savior" like the Dalai Lama. It is a good political satire of the Fascists in Czechia and the Sudetenland right before WWII.

The film is both horrible and comedic, and the gruesome murders of his wife and son are done in a very comical way. The film also uses the very sexually explicit imagery that the Czech new wave was known for which only adds to the perversion. One "comedic" scene is where the cremator praises German Fascism and the very act of death itself at his own wife's funeral while his comrades hail him and cheer him on. The scene where Kropfkringl discusses the beauty of a Jewish ceremony while scapegoating them to his NSDAP comrades in an intercut scene was masterful editing.

The soundtrack to this is very beautiful. I feel Terry Gilliam must have been influenced by this film and Czech New Wave films like it because many parts of the soundtrack and cinematography reminded me of Baron Munchausen and some of his other films (including an ending shot and scene that seemed very reminiscent to me of Brazil's). Definitely worth watching, but some people just don't get it.