The Cremator

Studio: The Criterion Collection

May 05, 2020 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick

Rudolf Hrušínský plays Karel Kopfrkingl, a dedicated employee of a Prague crematorium. Set in the early 1930s, Karel holds a warped respect for the work he does, regarding death as a way of liberating souls from their suffering—converting their bodies to ash is the only way to free them completely—and believing in reincarnation. He fetishizes his profession. Karel is clearly an ill man, and his dangerous mental state mixes into an even more terrifying concoction with the rise of the Third Reich; his sudden, increased belief in genetic and moral purity turns him against half-Jewish wife and children, and the coworkers he’d befriended at his beloved “temple of death.”

Juraj Herz’s The Cremator (1969) is often described as a dark comedy, but it feels more appropriate to view it as a horror film. Hrušínský is a quirky villain, albeit extremely unnerving and frightening, and Herz revels in the grotesqueries of the Nazi characters who surround him. It’s hard to imagine anyone would call this film funny. Disturbing, yes. Discomforting, absolutely. Funny? No way.

The movie has many surreal touches, and it won’t surprise anyone that Herz was close friends with Svankmajer in the day. There’s a trip to a morbid wax museum show, in which visitors are asked to view notorious murder scenes—the audience members keep commenting on the figures’ realism when they are, in fact, played by actors. The opening credits are also animated in a way that seems to set up something more zany, but perhaps were set up so to put viewers further off-guard.

The Cremator is an incredibly strange, haunting film, photographed wonderfully—the black-and-white blu-ray image is stupendous—with a beguiling performance from its lead. You may need to already have an interest in Czech cinema to get the most out of it, but those who do will find a New Wave masterwork that sat unscreened for roughly two decades.

Also include on the disc is Herz’s earlier short film, The Junk Shop, which on the other hand is very funny: it’s an absurd look at the employees and eccentric customers of a paper recycling factory. (Imagine The Office, through a filter of Czech surrealism.) We also get a robust documentary on composer Zdeněk Liška, featuring interviews with Jan Svankmajer, the Brothers Quay, and Herz, which may be worth the price of admission alone for any fans of these iconoclast animators. We also have older interviews with the movie’s lead actor and director, who talk about this movie’s genesis, and are nice inclusions. All in all, it’s another great addition of Czech cinema into the Criterion Collection, who already made a significant contribution earlier this year in bringing three incredible Karel Zeman releases to North American home video.

(www.criterion.com/films/27853-the-cremator)

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