The Cremator

- Halloween Part 2! - A very competently directed film that explores some deep facets regarding the nature of evil and it's relation with spirituality. - Really fun to just have a disgusting hypocrite of a character just to start with, then watch him devolve and devolve. - Cause even from the beginning Karel is a "family man" who frequents brothels, and "abstains" while drinking alcohol for celebrations, who believes all ash is the same but blood is a deeply segregated component of the body. All of these little quirks really add up to form a character that would realistically be pliable to the ideals of fascism. - I think one of the issues I have with this film lies there, from what I gather, the point the film is making is that fascism takes advantage of good family men with eccentric sensibilities and that not all fascists look like screaming psychopaths. In this regard, I don't think the film makes us like Karel enough from the beginning, at least personally, I saw a lot of his little quirks and sensibilities as more malicious than eccentric so I think the films message misses a little for me. - Still, it's a powerful message accentuated with incredibly horrifying camerawork. - The way Karel is filmed throughout the story is excellent, there's these fish eye lens zooms that make him appear just as disgusting and pathetic as he really is, empty space surrounding him to emphasize how small of a man he is. - The framing of a lot of shots are excellent too, specifically in the more domestic scenes, the use of doorways and arches to frame domestic life is great. - The chase sequences are the best filmed portions of this film, the look of uncomfortableness and unease on Lakme's face as she's chased through the house in one continuous take is really great and further adds to the mood of nausea and disgust this movie inspires. Karel chasing Zina around the preparation room is also one of the scarier parts of the film and is also very well filmed. - Obviously, the film is very New Wave with a fun jump cut segment early on, experimental sound design when it comes to dialogue and all the other French-y sensibilities, not too many notes, executed pretty well. - The 2nd Act is a bit of a bore though compared to the gripping 1st and 3rd Acts. - Finally, the match cuts in this film are phenomenal, there are about 5(?) and each one is as impressive as the last, so seamless and they work so well to make the film feel more cohesive, which is necessary as a lot of the film is slightly disjointed (non-negative) or disconnected events.