Review: A father's unrelenting pursuit of answers powers the sad, obsessive documentary 'Closure'
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Set us as preferred Silent witnesses, a bridge and a river have become the only constants in the life of Poland’s Daniel Dymiński, a brokenhearted father searching for his son.His unresolved grief has turned into tireless determination.
It’s only the endless search that anchors him to this world.Oscillating between the atmosphere of an ominous thriller and the humanism of a compassionate real-life portrait, the affecting documentary “Closure,” from Polish filmmaker Michał Marczak (“All These Sleepless Nights”), navigates Daniel’s sorrow as he strategically cruises the Vistula River day in and day out in hopes of finding the body of his missing teenage boy, Krzysztof (or Chris).In truth, Daniel is holding on to hope that Chris didn’t die by suicide by jumping off the bridge.Using voiceover from newscasts, Marczak entertains another possibility: Could the teen have run away as an act of rebellion? As the media obsess over the case — particularly because the last security camera footage of Chris saw him standing on the bridge for 20 minutes — we hear about tips flooding in from people claiming to have seen him.“He didn’t even say goodbye,” Daniel says about not finding a note during one of several moments of reflection beside Marczak, whose presence is not a secret.
He’s not exactly a fly on the wall but only interjects at pointed moments.The bulk of the footage in “Closure” shows Daniel on his boat with a small team of people checking every inch of the river and occasionally finding more than tree trunks and trash.
An eerie soundscape, marked by a persistent thump reminiscent of a body hitting the water, suffuses the film.As Marczak portrays it, Daniel’s relationship with his wife, Agnieszka, only exists in conversations about Chris’ disappearance.Likewise, his other son, Patryk, and his...