Editor’s note: The following is a review from a Critical Writing and Reviewing student at the University of Missouri.
Necrobusiness unravels a tale of deception, shady business dealings, lies and murder yet manages to entertain viewers with genuinely comical scenes throughout.
The 95 minute documentary takes place in Lodz, Poland. The viewer enters the film when reporter Monika Sieradzka goes on assignment to find out more about a crime that has been going on in Lodz for years, possibly the biggest in Polish history. Sieradzka enters in the middle of an investigation as Lodz funeral director and Mayor Wiltold Skrzydlewski speaks to the local press about a plot in the city involving health officials from underpaid paramedics to doctors and specifically mortuary worker Jacek Tomalski.
Allegedly, paramedics were given money for the dead bodies they brought to various funeral directors in Poland. The directors in turn were paying the paramedics and other health workers by scamming grieving families out of exuberant amounts of money given by the Polish government for the deceased’s funeral expenses. A very prosperous and dangerous business of exchanging money for dead bodies goes on for years in the city.
After a failed assassination attempt on Skrzydlewski’s life by competitor Tomalski, supposedly because he was going to leave the others out to dry to gain more for himself and his business, the documentary follows Tomalski’s trail and its effects on his mind and family. During the trial, the third member of the criminal hierarchy, simply called Sumera throughout the documentary, speaks willingly and even comically about Tomalski and Skrzydlewski’s involvement, even as he awaits his own trial.
This film noir actually possess a lighter, quirky side that allows the viewer to gain an understanding about the gruesome case with comedic relief. Directors Richard Solarz and Fredrik von Krusenstjerna use comedy as a constant factor in the documentary, making it okay and even natural for the viewer to laugh through the film with quirky characters such as Sumera, who spend the majority of the documentary acting like a secret agent and throwing everyone left field with his random responses.
Sumera is first introduced meeting reporter Sieradzka in a covered train station. Sumera can be seen throughout the documentary speaking in hushed tone, wearing shaded glasses at all times, even in the courtroom or indoors interviewing with Sieradzka. The height of comedy is the court scene where Sumera is caught tape recording the proceedings in which he is a defendant, while on the stand.
Sumera’s seemingly total separation from the deaths, blackmail and scandal that he is allegedly involved in, and the reaction of those around him to his nonchalance, allows the viewer to laugh in typically tense scenes.
“Basically nothing is closed to the public,” stated co-director Fredrik von Krusenstjerna when asked about the seemingly unlimited access to buildings and areas throughout Lodz during the documentary that allowed the viewer to get a full understanding of the crime and its effects. Solarz and Von Krusenstjerna successfully use cartoon sketching, perky music and constant comic relief to show the viewer the horrors of a murder money scheme gone awry and the lives of those closely affected. The directors balance the use of indoor and outdoor scene shots, all doing various times of daylight, to give the film a very clean and visually pleasing day to day setting. The film ends on with Skrzydlewski untouched and the trial ongoing.
by Asia Jones
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