Krux Review: WWII Village Stages Mass Suicide — SkimNews
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- Tony Vahl's debut feature "Krux," a German-Polish production, premiered at Toronto's Discovery strand before making its European debut in San Sebastián's main competition.
- The film is set in an isolated northeast German village where mayor Lukas Milo initiates a mass suicide, ordering livestock slaughtered, pets drowned, and cyanide tablets distributed to residents as the Soviet Red Army advances.
- Jella Haase stars as war widow Greta, who receives her dead fiancé's heart preserved in a jar and is married by pastor Martin Wuttke to the soldier's helmet at a formal church ceremony.
- Clemens Schick plays schoolmaster Fritz, who secretly listens to Thomas Mann broadcasts and holds quiet anti-fascist sympathies; he joins Greta in resisting Walter's suicide order.
- Cinematographer Piotr Sobocinski Jr., whose prior credits include "Corpus Christi" and "Anniversary," delivers rigorously composed near-Expressionist visuals using exacting shadow and spare illumination.
- The review frames "Krux" as an evocation of totalitarian gaslighting's lasting effects, noting its contemporary relevance to cultish extremist loyalties even after the regime has fallen.
Why it matters: After a San Sebastián main competition berth, the film's extreme austerity — sustained darkness with no conventional plot momentum — limits its commercial prospects beyond the most dedicated arthouse distributors. For Berlin-based Vahl, the debut establishes a serious new filmmaking voice; her collaboration with cinematographer Sobocinski Jr. yields near-Expressionist imagery the reviewer praises even while warning viewers absorb the bleakness by the halfway mark.
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