[…] Crulic: The Path to Beyond [A-] Continuing the twin themes of imprisonment and the fighting of injustice, “Crulic” tells the true story of Romanian political prisoner Claudiu Crulic. Ostensibly a documentary, the film finds director Anca Damian utilizing animated sequences to augment the emotional impact of Crulic’s life, from childhood to his eventual arrest for theft. Beginning with Crulic’s death, Damian also depicts the young man’s struggle for survival even before his dubious conviction.

Sample Criticwire Review: “The surprise here is that writer/director Damian has tasked five of her country’s most talented animators to weave Crulic’s tragic tale as an unfolding tapestry that’s as memorable, beguiling, and on occasion as majestic, as anything we’ve seen come out of Romania…As a film, ‘Crulic’ becomes a death trip in much the same ways that Richard Linklater’s ‘A Scanner Darkly’ fantasized author Philip K. Dick’s descent into drugged madness, or Gus Van Sant’s ‘Last Days’ imagined Kurt Cobain’s soul rising from his body after his suicide.” – Kurt Brokaw, The Independent […]