With so many hand car washes being scrutinized for people trafficking its ripe territory for filmmakers that’s not really been utilized as much as might be expected. The Ceremony takes up the mantle in writer–director Jack King’s strong debut strikingly shot in black and white. Here it’s a Bradford car wash with head car washer Cristi (Tudor Cucu-Dumitrescu) keeping things running smoothly for its shady owner, Zully. And low key is how they all want it because all the employees are illegal immigrants. But it is all on the verge of blowing up when a customer accuses one of the washers of stealing his Rolex that he’s left in the car. It’s Cristi who does his best to calm the customer and front out his colleague about the presumed theft.
But it gets worse when Cristi kicks out the employee from the over populated house they all live in and discovers him the following morning in the car wash dead by suicide and its colleague Yusuf (Erdal Yildiz) who next arrives and is coerced into helping Cristi hide the body rather than get the police involved risking them all getting arrested.
What follows is something of a road movie as the pair drive a white van with the body in the back to find somewhere to dispose of it. Cristi wants to dump it somewhere, anywhere that’s remote in the bleak landscape they drive through whereas the Yusef wants to afford the body full burial rights in accordance with Islam.
What could have been a twisty turny thriller instead becomes a character piece with the pairs’ road trip becoming increasingly more of a rumination on what their lives have become. Both actors are excellent as is the first half of the film. The latter section of The Ceremony gets a little too ponderous but it’s an impressive debut by all concerned even if the Rolex plot device lacks credibility – although the next time we get the car washed we’ll be sure to stock the glove compartment with Rolex, Omega’s and gold krugerrands as well as every painting by Van Gogh and issue No 1 of all Marvel superhero comics.
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Here’s the trailer for The Ceremony…..
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