The Cremator
The Cremator • 1h 40m
Directed by Juraj Herz • 1969 • Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovak New Wave iconoclast Juraj Herz’s terrifying, darkly comic vision of the horrors of totalitarian ideologies stars a supremely chilling Rudolf Hrušínský as the pathologically morbid Karel Kopfrkingl, a crematorium manager in 1930s Prague who believes fervently that death offers the only true relief from human suffering. When he is recruited by the Nazis, Kopfrkingl’s increasingly deranged worldview drives him to formulate his own shocking final solution. Blending the blackest of gallows humor with disorienting expressionistic flourishes—queasy point-of-view shots, distorting lenses, jarring quick cuts—the controversial, long-banned masterpiece THE CREMATOR is one of cinema’s most trenchant and disturbing portraits of the banality of evil.
Up Next in The Cremator
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This Way to the Cooling Chambers
Originally produced in 2011 by Bildstörung and reedited for the Criterion Collection in 2019 by Daniel Bird, this short documentary by Bird, Alexander Beneke, and Carsten Baiersdörfer revisits some of the shooting locations of THE CREMATOR with director Juraj Herz and chronicles the making of the...
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Madness and the Macabre
In this interview, conducted by the Criterion Collection in 2019, film programmer Irena Kovarova discusses THE CREMATOR’s unique visual style.
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Music by Zdeněk Liška
This 2017 documentary about composer Zdeněk Liška features interviews with filmmakers Juraj Herz, the Quay Brothers, and Jan Švankmajer, among others.
