VULCANIZADORA - Mark Reviews Movies

Vulcanizadora, Oscilloscope Laboratories

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 1, 2025

It's difficult to talk about death, even when it's the first or, maybe, only thing on one's mind. That might explain why the main characters of writer/director Joel Potrykus' Vulcanizadora, a pair of friends on what looks like a camping trip in the forests of Michigan, seem to talk about everything or, at least, anything else.

There's certainly something else going on between Derek (Potrykus) and Martin (Joshua Burge), who have been friends for years and somehow—based on the way each one behaves during their little trek—haven't killed or seriously hurt each other. One of the early mysteries of the film is why these two men are friends in the first place. They couldn't be more unalike. Derek is constantly talking or making noises (He makes satisfied moans with every other bite or so while eating, for example), asking questions that only seem relevant to him at the moment, and otherwise being, well, kind of annoying.

Meanwhile, Martin is stone-faced and quiet for most of the trip. That's his primary quality, actually, apart from the fact that he generally seems capable of tolerating Derek. Maybe that's the reason they're friends in the first place. Martin can put up with Derek, and if this is what the guy is actually like all the time, it's not as if many other people or any other person could do the same. It'd be as if they're simply friends by default.

Then again, Derek might not be like this all the time. After all, these are distinct circumstances in which the friends find themselves. No, it's not the hiking or the camping or the isolation or anything else that goes with this sort of expedition. The two men have made a pact.

They'll say that much, and based on Martin's mood and how he'll only speak in cryptically nihilistic statements when he actually does talk, it's easy enough to get a very good idea of what that agreement entails. Basically, these guys don't plan on returning from this camping trip.

Potrykus' screenplay is too specific in its dialogue, its characterizations, and its gradual revelations for us not to figure out that part of the story pretty early, too. He needs us to know that neither Derek nor Martin expects to be alive by the end of this outing, because that's the only way the film can find the melancholy, the underlying tragedy, a study of how people talk and don't talk about death, and the humor of this story.

Yes, the film is somehow funny, as well, even though it's about two men on what amounts to a death march through the woods and to a scenic beach. It's not gallows humor, however, because that would imply the jokes have to do with death itself. No, this is wickedly funny because it's so apparent that only one of these men is actually of a mind to carry through with this scheme.

That's important to note, if only because it means Potrykus' script isn't trying to be funny about depression, anxiety, and all of the other issues with which these men are dealing. It treats those things as a plain fact, with Derek feeling anxious about being a father to a son whose mother clearly doesn't want the boy's father in his life and Martin feeling hopeless after being released from jail while still facing the potential of a lengthy prison sentence.

Derek's more open about his problems and, well, everything else that comes into his wandering mind, and once the nature of this trip becomes apparent, even Derek's more irritating qualities take on an air of sadness. Of course, the guy would talk so much about so many irrelevant things, take the two on a couple of detours (What he's looking for is pretty amusing), and treat this like some childlike adventure under these circumstances. He's either trying to show his buddy what fun life can be or to postpone the inevitable moment when the plan needs to be fulfilled.

That's what is funny about this tale, because it feels so innocent and almost whimsical, despite the obvious severity of what these two men have agreed to do. Even the method they have devised seems absurd at first, and obviously, it won't be mentioned here, since the screenplay does intentionally play a lot of details close to the chest. Potrykus doesn't just want us to laugh at this. He basically encourages it by making so much of the plan, Derek's delaying tactics, and Martin's quiet determination so patently ludicrous. If Derek wants to die, he has an odd way of showing it, and if Martin genuinely considers Derek to be a friend, he has an even stranger way of showing that. The contradictions might be the point, but even if they're not, they remain inherently fascinating.

It would be wrong, obviously, to say where this story ultimately goes, although it's important, perhaps, to hint at that the fact that what would seem to be the ultimate end of the premise of this story is just the beginning of another one. The first half of Vulcanizadora is a unique kind of comedy that finds humor in what would appear to be the most unlikely of scenarios in which to find it. What can be said of the second half is that somehow finds humor under even more unlikely circumstances, while transforming its mournful undercurrent into a wholly bleak one.

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