I honestly wasn't prepared to witness such a mesmerizing one-of-a-kind experience going into this chechoslovak new wave flick. I'm of the opinion that five-star ratings should be used sparingly, only to be awarded to true and basically flawless masterpieces of filmmaking. This, however, is a true five-star film in every concievable way.

It kinda starts out like a dreamlike, constantly disorienting and off-kilter fairytale about a cremator taking a lot of pride in his job. Propelled forward by rapid-fire yet always perfectly fluid editing, the first half successfully tricks you into almost getting to like the oddball protagonist and his slightly disturbing but weirdly magical world.

All of that is, of course, before all his pretenses of a grounded and thoughtful worldview get exposed as nothing but a nice looking façade and before his elaborately laid out morality turns out to be either utterly empty or awfully flexible, before he joins the nazi party and before the wacky comedy turns into pure murderous horror and - in its final consequence - the holocaust. The Cremator sure leaves a bitter taste in your mouth yet you can't stop laughing at the absurdity of the rampant death cult that's been at the very core of the third reich.