To Dust

This film is so morbid, literally. It is a sad to see that the man is so disturbed and stuck due to his wife's passing, but his morbid fascination with the morbid is just very disturbing. Be prepared if you really are going to watch this. It contains very very disturbing scenes.

"To Dust" (2018 release; 91 min.) brings the story of Shmuel, an Orthodox Jew. As the movie opens, Shmuel is at the hospital, where his wife just has passed away unexpectedly. Shmuel is bewildered and in deep grief. At night he has nightmares about what becomes of the body of his wife. He becomes obsessed with that, and by accident befriend Albert, a science professor at the local community college. Albert explains to Shmuel what becomes of a person's decaying body by showing the analogy of a decaying pig's body... At this point we are 10 min. into the movie but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is one weird little movie. What starts out as a movie about grieving for a lost loved one, gradually evolves into something different altogether: a dark, if not black, comedy about decaying bodies, both of the human and of the animal kind, yeah... While the initial third of the movie is mostly so(m)ber and even macabre, the last hour is at times laugh-out-loud funny. The biggest surprise for me was the outstanding and all around charming performance from Matthew Broderick as the community college science professor who unexpectedly (but not unwillingly) becomes tangled up in the life of the grieving Orthodox Jew, leading to situations he probably never imagined possible. In that sense, the movie is a bizarre "buddy movie", pairing the Orthodox Jew to this divorced college professor. Check out the scenes as they go on the road to Knoxville, TN to check out a "body farm" (yea, it's kinda like that level of weirdness). Frankly, I'm amazed this movie even got made (and surely the fact that Broderick stars was the deciding factor in that). This little movie is way out there, and surely not for everyone. In the end, I found it uneven but at times brilliant.

"To Dust" premiered at last year's Tribeca film festival (yes, a year ago) and showed up out of the blue in the theater this weekend. I just had to check it out. The Friday early evening screening where I saw this at was attended by exactly 10 people, myself included, of which 2 couples left after about 20 min. and didn't return... If you are in the mood for a dark Jewish comedy that is "out there", I'd readily suggest you give this a chance, be it at the theater (not very likely), on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.

Would have gotten nine stars except the characterization of the C.C. prof was more comical than realistic, and any half way adequate collegiate anthropology or forensic taphonomy dept. or natural history museum could have given direction to questions of decomposition. Anyway, sort-of-science meets orthodox Jew (actually an Hasidic cantor) in this at times amusing, at times heartfelt devotion, journey & discovery of soulful death. The pig (other animals have also been time lapsed filmed) cycle of returning nutrients to the earth is a film classic which brings up the question of the effects of embalming chemicals & casket materials.

I can safely say To Dust is... Quite unlike most movie - or maybe any movie - about grief I can think of... uh... Maybe it's reverse Hassidic Frankenstein? Instead of resurrecting a body to life it's bringing the body to get into the Earth quicker?! This is followed to some wonderfully bizarre extremes.

The main character is a bit hard to really get into due to his... Ways about him, which is being stubborn and prickly and totally set in his mindset regarding the body and the soul (not a slight on the actor, he does what hes asked to do), and Broderick acts his Brodericky self off. It's a truly interesting independent film dramedy that doesn't compromise really, which is a strength and a detriment. It's a view into a hermetically sealed world done with humor, even if it's hit or miss, and genuine pathos.

Thank you for getting into producing, Ron Perlman!

When the R rating for this film declares disturbing images they're not kidding. The movie is a dark, absurd, and morbid comedy, as a Hasidic cantor (Geza Rohrig) becomes obsessed with trying to find out how long it will take his recently deceased wife's remains to decompose into dust so that her spirit can be free.

He will eventually team up with a reluctant community college science professor (Matthew Broderick) to try and get some answers. They will employ some highly bizarre and weird techniques to try and accomplish this.

I found most of the intended deadpan humor didn't quite work here, but as the film progressed I did find some of it darkly funny, like the scene with the security guard (Natalie E. Carter) at the Tennessee body farm.

Overall, after reading so many glowing reviews from pro critics I came away disappointed with this movie. It's not an easy watch for sure, but it also was unlike anything I can recall seeing on screen before.