“Cremation is quiet humane and frees people from fear of
death”
--- Karl Kopfrkingl, the Cremator
Prolific Czech film-maker Juraj Herz’s “The Cremator” (aka
‘Spalovac mrtvol’, 1969) is the kind of disorientating movie you need to watch
(at least) two times to fully appreciate it. It would take quite some time (while watching it for the
first time) to grasp the macabre characterization, setting and historical
relevance. In the second viewing, after getting familiar with the narrative
trajectory, we can marvel and further delve into its expressionistic cinematography and rapid
cutting which immerses us on the distorted consciousness of the cremator
protagonist Karl Kopfrkingl (Rudolf Hrusinsky). “The Cremator” amalgamates the
elements of psychological horror with that of dark comedy and the resulting
tone is both jarring and lyrical.
In the 1960’s, Czechoslovakian film-makers made some of the
greatest humane and satirical works, which resulted to ‘Czech New Wave’.
The key works of directors Milos Forman, Jiri Menzel, Jan Kadar, Jan Nemec and
Ivan Passer were regarded as part of Czech New Wave, while the works of Juraj
Herz is often said to be marginalized due to his puppet artist status. Juraj
Herz studied in the puppetry department in Academy of Performing Arts in Prague
(AMU) along with another renowned Czech film-maker Jan Svankmejer (Herz also
worked as assistant director in Jan Kadar’s Oscar winning masterpiece “The Shop
on Main Street”, 1965). “The Cremator” was Juraj Herz’s third feature and when
he began shooting, his country was in its short-lived period of liberalization
(between January 5th 1968 and August 21, 1968, known as ‘Prague Spring’).
Herz’s artistic freedom was cut down before finishing the film as Soviet Union
regained its hold over Czech film industry. Although the film was set in 1939,
relating to the events after Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, director Herz ambiguously referred to the domination of totalitarian forces like the
Soviet Union. This sharp allegorical nature of the film made Soviet censors to
immediately ban the film and its complex, valuable social commentary was only
discovered decades later.
Based on Ladislav Fuks 1967 novel (Fuks and Herz
collaborated on the script), “The Cremator’s” bizarre, creepy subjectivity
offers us a trip of madness and murder. The extreme close-ups, spookily
sedating oration, fish-eye lenses, uncomfortable inter-cuts, fluid cross-cutting,
unbelievably quick transitions, and a haunting choral score keeps on increasing
our feelings of terror as if we are trapped inside the mind of a self-seeking
madman (and despite the pervading sense of doom there are some unforgettable
moments of jet-black comedy). The central character Karl Koprfrikingl is so obsessed with his job that he can turn any casual conversation into the one
citing importance of his job. He is a cremator, although he likes to describe
himself as the one who alleviate humans from the evil of suffering and sets the
soul free from body to be reincarnated. Karl calls the crematorium as ‘temple
of death’ and while giving a tour of the place to a new co-worker Mr. Dvorak he
explains every practical work with a blend of quirky observations: “these
furnaces always reminds me of the ones in which our daily bread is baked”.
Karl also shows immense love for his wife Lakme (Vlasta Chramostava) and concern for his children future (teenagers Zina and Milli). Karl’s finds simple pleasure in life by
visiting a brothel, grotesque wax works and hearing classical music. He doesn’t
smoke or drink, but pays a visit to doctor Bettelheim to check for any
infection. Karl gradually becomes a prisoner of the morbid aspects of his
profession and this is facilitated by the arrival of Nazi sympathizer friend
Walter Reinke (Ilja Prachar). Under the friend’s influence, Karl goes to Dr.
Bettleheim to trace his ‘pure’ Germanic roots in the blood. The doctor says
“they are all the same like human ashes, be they French or Spanish, doctor or
clerk”. But, Karl Kopfrkingl is encouraged to reject the words of ‘Jewish
doctor’ and to act as informant for ‘The Party’. His descent into madness comes
full circle, when he starts to believe on the ‘Party’s’ idea of salvation. Now
all Karl wants to do liberate as many souls as possible, including the souls of
his family members and friends.
The biggest challenge for director Herz in “The Cremator” is
not adapting the bizarre events & characters to the screen, but designing a
visual language that remains equivalent to the literary description of a
deteriorating mind. The pre-title sequence of the film opens in front of
leopard cage in the zoo, where Kopfrkingl met his wife Lakme, 17 years ago. The
shots of Karl and his family are brilliantly juxtaposed with that of animals in
the cage. There are a lot of extreme close-up shots of Karl’s creased forehead
and prowling eyes, which are juxtaposed with the eyes of a lion, head of
crocodile and tongue-flicking snake. These earlier shots hint at his animalistic
tendencies and also suggest us about the upcoming unsettling atmosphere. In the
same sequence, Karl claims his family as ‘decent & perfect’, while he and
his family members stands in front of a convex mirror. The shot uses fish-eye
lens (one of the many use of fish-eye lens in the film) which conveys both
dysfunctions in his family and the deranging mental attitude of Karl. Some
times there are extreme close-up shots of actual fish eyes, which the ‘Senses
of Cinema’ article (written by Adam Schofield) describes as ‘conscious bit of
meta-self-mockery in regards to the use of fish-eye lenses’.
The title sequence is filled with fragmented body parts of
female, which hints at his tendency to objectify women’s body and also about
his unquenchable sexual desire. When Karl hangs a picture of beautiful art at
his home, his mind conjures up images of nude women (jump-cuts are employed),
suggesting his demented mental landscape. In the scene when Karl stands
indecisively about where to hang the portrait of Nicaraguan President,
flash-cuts are used where Karl is seen holding the portrait in various parts of
room. The same technique is employed when Karl remains undecided about joining
the party. Reinke’s words on party membership & the membership document are
flash-cut with the images of naked woman, since those pictures are what tempts
him the most than the ideology. Perhaps the greatest aspect of Herz’s visual
language lies in the way he beautifully transitions from one setting to
another. The dialogues have an unbroken flow and the expressions of Karl remain
unchanged, but the character is invisibly transported over to a different
setting. For example, Karl undresses alongside prostitute Dagmar (who eerily
resembles his wife Lakme) in a brothel room and holds the ‘insect collection’
frame in his hand and goes on to hang it, but when he hangs it we understand
that the scene has transitioned to his home. In another scene, Karl
simultaneously witnesses a Jewish celebration and recounts it to Reinke. These
fluid transitions showcase the increasing loss of reality and disorientation
(the absence of continuity means is equated with the absence of rationality in
Karl’s mind).
Director Herz and cinematographer Stanislov Milota combines
the interior space of unnerving sets along with fast-cuts to create the horror
feeling. The subjectivity that’s emphasized through the recurrent use of
wide-lenses easily passes through the horror elements. Both the flash-cuts and
subjectivity keeps us trapped inside Karl’s mind. In the scene when Karl takes
his family to the carnival, the shots of smiling children at the playground,
brings a sour expression to Karl’s face. But, inside the waxworks which
exhibits brutal murders, Karl offers a devilish smile, indicating the desensitized
nature of him. When the ‘bathhouse murder’ is vividly enacted by wax works, all
Karl thinks about is their clean bathroom. In fact the horrific insensitivity
of Karl in the waxworks exhibit paves the path for the murders he commits at
the end (the metal bar and hanging rope foreshadows the ominous events waiting
to happen). There are many other odd, eccentric framing decisions to
demonstrate the unsettling nature between individual and surroundings. One
particular, unforgettable odd framing comes toward the ending (after Karl
committing those heinous acts in collaboration with Nazis). In this scene, Karl
stands in front of a diabolic painting of Bosch and as he explains his grand
idea to ‘free souls’, a nauseating montage of the hellish images in Boschian
fresco is paraded for intimating the fully perverted sense of Karl’s (and
Nazi’s or a totalitarian state’s) ideology.
Despite employing
such elaborate cinematic tricks, Director Herz’ s visual language doesn’t
remain confounding or digressing in imparting the strong, incendiary statement
about totalitarian state. Even though it is systematically odd, it speaks
perfectly to indict the irrational, vile dogmas of both the ‘Third Reich’ and
Soviet ‘Iron Curtain’. Karl interpreting ‘Tibetan Book of Dead’ to convince
himself and others about cremation and using it further with a sinister edge
could be related with the convoluted occult beliefs of the high ranking Nazis.
In the waxworks, Karl witnesses various forms of disease and says ‘but modern
science can protect us. When he is brainwashed by Nazi ideology, Karl comes to
the conclusion that death is only way to prevent contamination (in the waxwork,
a plagued young man is shown to commit suicide to stop the contagious disease).
He also learns to consider the identity of ‘Jews’ as a plague and insists upon
the cure of death. In this way, the Nazi’s final solution is related with that
of Karl’s deranged mind. There are many
touches of Hitler in Karl’s characterization (veteran of Great War, non-smoker,
etc) The lines ‘We live in Europe in the 20th century, a civilized
world’ and ‘I hear there’s martial law in the frontier regions’ are stressed
out in the narrative to comment on the ironic fate of how Nazi domination is
replaced with arrival of Soviet totalitarianism. The doctor’s words like
“violence never pays; aggressors will be beaten in the end” may have caused
unrest among the censor members of Soviet Union. The visuals and allegorical
representations do become heavy-handed at times and the jarring tonal changes
between psychological horror & dark comedy sticks out at times. But, such
imperfections are upended by the beguiling central performance. As soft-spoken Karl Kopfrkingl, Rudolf
Hrusinsky offers a singular, most memorable, and dizzying trip into the mind of
madman. Despite that cheery disposition, his eyes are able to get unnerving
enough to get underneath our skin.
Trailer
“The Cremator” (96 minutes) is a disturbing and ingeniously
layered work of cinema that focuses on the horrific individual & sociopolitical
changes in an indoctrinated country. It is one of the most unique, visually
superior features made on the experiences of totalitarianism.
Senses of Cinema -- Adam Schofield
Senses of Cinema -- Adam Schofield
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