A wealthy man, Karel Kopfkingl, is a good father, a good husband and a good employee. As cremator at the great crematorium in Prague, he works with dignity, meticulousness, and conviction. His constant search for perfection will give him strong fondness for the growing “new order” - the nazism. He agrees with the Nazi's thesis and put them into practice. Under the influence of the evil ideology, he exterminates in cold blood his jewish family: “the faster the body is transformed into dust, the faster the soul is freed.”
Banned by the board of censure for twenty years (“because I pilloried a conformist character, which didn't fit with the spirit of the time”, says Juraj Herz, L'incinérateur de cadavres; finished right after the Prague Spring, is a very dark psychological thriller.
Juraj Herz uses his expressive style in which are mixed a deep sense for strangeness, perversity and a fanciful vision.