Crulic-The Path to Beyond

Whoever said dead men tell no tales hasn't met Crulic. In Anca Damian's visually inventive film, he even narrates the events following his demise, including his body's identification in the morgue and his coffin's transportation along windy roads in a quest for burial. Viewers soon learn that Crulic died during a hunger strike in Poland. His protest served as a last gesture against false imprisonment on the charge that he stole money from a judge. Crulic's ghost haunts this tale in a calm and detached manner, retracing the steps that brought him to a sham trial defined by a casual absurdity that rivals some of the most distressing moments in Kafka. Drawing from actual events, the film's beautifully layered mix of watercolor backdrops, collage cutouts, photographs, and live-action animation intensifies the stark injustice of Crulic's fate, while visualizing his vanishing memory. Crulic calls for us to heed history-by coming to terms with a wrongful death that has not yet been put to rest.

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