The Cremator

For Karl Kopfrkingl, a loyal crematorium employee, the atmosphere of the late 1930s becomes a powerful impulse towards the realization of his perverse visions.

Spalovač mrtvol
Czechoslovakia 1968
  • English
96 min.
Accessible
  • This film is available in the following territories: Czechia, Slovakia.
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About

For the screen adaptation of his macabre tale of the same name, novelist Ladislav Fuks could hardly have found a more inventive director than Juraj Herz. In order to create a vivid portrait of an extremely dangerous individual, Herz blended elements of horror, thriller, psychological study, drama, and dark comedy with the same degree of sophistication as did the author himself. The hero, ostensibly the ideal representative of all civic virtues, is nothing more than an empty vessel that could be filled with absolutely anything. For this loyal crematorium employee and spurious champion of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the atmosphere of the late 1930s, with its increasingly menacing anti-Semitic charge, becomes a powerful impulse towards the realization of his perverse visions.

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Credits
Director: Juraj Herz
Based on: Ladislav Fuks
Screenplay: Ladislav Fuks, Juraj Herz
Cinematography: Stanislav Milota
Music: Zdeněk Liška
Sound: František Černý
Editing: Jaromír Janáček
Production Design: Zbyněk Hloch
Producer: Ladislav Hanuš
Costumes: Olga Dimitrovová
Cast: Rudolf Hrušínský, Vlasta Chramostová, Jana Stehnová-Čechová, Miloš Vognič, Ilja Prachař, Zora Božinová, Eduard Kohout, Jiří Lír
Links
  • This film is available in the following territories: Czechia, Slovakia.