Karl Kopfrkingl (Rudolf Hrušínský) is a pillar of his community. He has a solid, middle-class job at a crematorium. He's an attentive husband and a good father. He comes home for dinner every night and takes his family out on the weekends. He doesn't drink or smoke, and has no vices other than once-a-month visits to a reputable brothel. He's religiously tolerant and open-minded: Karl dabbles in Buddhism and he's married to a woman of mixed-Jewish ancestry.

All things considered, life is going very well for Karl, except that he has the misfortune of living in Prague on the eve of World War II. Suddenly it matters whether one's blood is Aryan or Jewish, and this bodes badly for Karl's wife and children. Unfortunately for Karl and his family, his grip on sanity appears no stronger than the disintegrating social order around him.

Slovak filmmaker Juraj Herz uses off kilter cinematography and visual tricks such as a fish-eye lens to create an expressionistic horror film about madness. Dialogue is frequently submersed below Karl's interior monologue, and the film's imagery is rooted in his subjective state of mind, thus Herz shows us the world much as Karl experiences it.

Overall, The Cremator is an entertainingly biting satire about the petite bourgeois and its capacity for evil divorced from maliciousness. There's definitely echoes of Adolph Eichmann in Karl Kopfrkingl's morally unhinged behavior.

Presentation
This review is of the European PAL-format release of The Cremator from the UK-based boutique DVD label Second Run. This film has not yet been released on DVD in North America.

Video:
This release is anamorphically presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1. The restoration of the original print materials and the new digital transfer generally look good. Nearly all evidence of debris has been removed, though mild print damage remains evident throughout. The black and white imagery is gorgeous featuring sharp contrast and fine detail, only infrequently marred by aliasing.

Audio:
This release is presented in a restored mono which is directed to the left and right front speakers. Audio quality is generally good with little evidence of distortion.

Optional English subtitles accompanying the original Czech audio are well translated, and appropriately sized, paced, and placed.

Extras:
Extras on this release consist of a booklet featuring an essay by Daniel Bird, and a newly-recorded 12-minute interview with ex-pat American stop-motion animators Stephen and Timothy Quay who are always fascinating to observe for their uncanny tendency to complete each others sentences.

Final Thoughts:
The Cremator ably combines the black comedy of Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb with the surrealism of Roman Palanski's Repulsion and the macabre horror of Jan Švankmajer. Fans of any of these styles should find much to appreciate in this Czech New Wave classic.