Spalovac mrtvol aka The Cremator (1969)
Karel Kopfrkingl has the perfect life: a beautiful and faithful wife and two lovely children. His income allows him to surround his family with art and beauty. And more importantly he LOVES his job as a crematorium operator or the title character
The Cremator. He finds the idea of burning people every day in the crematorium very much practical as he believes that cremation relieves earthly suffering and sends the soul to Heaven much faster than a standard burial. But as you peel back the layers of this weirdly uncanny character, you will find there is a lot more going on than just Kopfrkingl's desperate attempt to raise his position in life.
Kopfrkingl got the full camera attention every second of the film. The film shares his sadistic thoughts, reveals his gradually developing madness along with his tainted logic through a time to time monologue of his from the beginning to end. This is one of those rare psychological horror features where the audience senses it all the way with a hallucinatory & morbid touch in its every reel.
Though billed as partly a black comedy, this creepy Czech classic is just a bit too uncomfortable and surreal to truly meet that label. Made in the golden decade of
Psycho, Repulsion and Carnival of Souls, The Cremator remains unlike any movie you have ever seen before. It's slow, deliberate and genuinely horrifying where the black and white cinematography is haunting but beautiful; musical score is enthralling and aesthetically intriguing.
With barely a Nazi in sight,
The Cremator brilliantly captures the political horror of 1930s Europe & the Holocaust as it takes over from within and makes monsters of the most boringly normal of men. And with barely a drop of blood to be found,
The Cremator still manages to be brutally real. This is a pure horror and along with the director Juraj Herz, all the credit also goes to the actor (Rudolf Hrusinsky) who magnificently played the lead role...a performance that accurately and metaphorically fills the screen, an upsetting portrayal of a deceiving and psychotic character that steadily become occupied with Nazi political dogma.
Highly recommended.
>>: A