Closure
(Poland, 108 min.)
Dir. Michał Marczak
Prod. Monika Braid, Michał Marczak, Rémi Grellety, Katarzyna Szczerba, Karolina Marczak
Programme: World Cinema Documentary Competition (World premiere)
It must have been a strange sight. Daniel Dymiński stands at the edge of a bridge that spans the Vistula River in Warsaw, Poland. Cyclists whiz by, while traffic commutes on the other side of the barrier. It’s a busy thoroughfare for a man to be playing with some loaves of bread.
Daniel plunges his fingers into one a crusty loaf and digs out a cavity. He inserts something into the bread, affixes some ties to hold it in place, and plops the loaf over the edge and intro the river. He watches as the current carries it. Then he repeats the process with the other loaves, and then tracks their progress on some monitors.
The strange plunge of the crusty loaves occurs partway through Closure, a devastating portrait of grief and the obsessive grip of the unknown, after Daniel receives some morbid, if useful advice. A friend tells him of an old process that people used to find corpses in the river: they’d insert a candle into a loaf of bread and watch it progress through the water. More often than not, as the bread absorbed water and the loaf dragged with the current, it would usually mark the approximate location of the missing body. That primitive method becomes a lifeline for Daniel even though he has all the best contemporary technology at his disposal.
Those breads sail in search of Daniel’s son, Krzysztof (or Chris), who at 16-years-old, went missing one day. That spot on the Vistula River marks his last known whereabouts. One of Chris’s friends, retracing the geography of the bridge, says that Chris stood there for 20 minutes and then disappeared in a flash when the camera angle changed. That leaves only two options, neither of which are great: Chris either jumped or ran away with intent to disappear.
Director Michał Marczak (All These Sleepless Nights) flips true crime documentary on its head as he accompanies Daniel through his unwavering searches for his son. With the sheer hell of not knowing Chris’s whereabouts gnawing at him, Daniel dredges the river day after day. He painstakingly rakes the riverbed, pokes flotsam, and scans the sand with a metal detector. Even finding traces of Chris’s braces would provide an answer.
Thus ensues an absolutely harrowing odyssey. Go-pro cameras capture the underwater efforts as Daniel scours the riverbed. One watches anxiously as the camera’s eye creeps through the murky water, under weeds, and through debris. The film conveys the horrible sensation that must be going through Daniel’s mind. You don’t want to see anything, but if anything—a hand, a hoodie, a shoe—pops into the frame, it’s at least an answer.
Marczak shoots Daniel’s relentless search through the river and its surrounding area with a sombre, yet humble eye. The striking cinematography captures the weight of grief the father carries, but there’s something respectful about the level of polish with which Closure presents its tale. The subject matter is heavy, but it receives the care, attention, and dignity it deserves. This film provides an uncomfortably intimate close-up on the ways in which grief weighs down on a person and eats away at him. As more people join the search party and the reconnaissance area expands, the quest seems increasingly dire. Doubly so when it hits the two-year mark. However, therein Closure finds the devastating complexity of Daniel’s search. The more area he clears, the further they go without a body, which means that Chris could presumably be alive.
As Daniel returns home to his wife, Agnieszka, their family struggles to hold onto whatever moments of joy might arise. Birthday parties have an underlying sadness. Every meal at the dinner table has an empty seat. A sense of absence overwhelms them. The search is all they can do to fill that.
Closure observes the hell a parent faces when the decision to call off the search is to accept the worst scenario without having the relief of finality. Instead, as Daniel’s story gains attention, he helps other families on similar quests. One of them is particularly grim but productive as he joins a father scouring the shoreline. They find a body, and the grieving parents can’t believe they found their daughter so quickly. The sad reality is that they’re lucky, if one can be so crass to use the term, as Daniel returns to his hunt.
The film smartly extends beyond Daniel’s melancholy quest as it explores the devastating losses these families feel, but also the few breadcrumbs that Chris left behind. His TikTok videos collectively shape a message about a desire to disappear, while a few witnesses of his final journey remember a young man who seemed pretty amicable. Nobody recalls obvious signs of distress. But there are cryptic cries for help if looking at the clues with fresh eyes.
Closure may ultimately be a film that saves lives through its shattering assessment of loss and mental health. It’s a reminder of the support networks that exist and of the necessity of seeking help no matter how hard it may be. The losses these parents face in the aftermath of their child’s sudden exit from their lives are unbearable. But there’s admirable, overwhelming strength, too. All they can do is keep looking. This film shows that they could and would have done so much more if given the chance.
