A father’s unrelenting pursuit of answers powers the sad, obsessive documentary ‘Closure’

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 undisclosed job occupy a peripheral, barely noticeable place. Daniel’s all-consuming, single-minded focus is to find answers for the unending tragedy that has besieged his family. On some of his trips, Daniel’s own elderly father accompanies him, more out of worry that he too might be losing his son to the river than out of any real belief that Chris will turn up.

Daniel’s stoic resolve to continue the physically demanding search comes off as a tactic to prevent himself from crumbling. It’s a traditionally masculine, avoidant approach to dealing with the unbearably torturous situation. Clues eventually come from Chris’ TikTok reposts. The findings shake Daniel’s already unstable ground.

Marczak, also the film’s cinematographer, mimics the sensation of being trapped in a nightmarish reality. The transitions that he and editor Anna Garncarczyk use to move us from one situation to another enhance the notion of a flowing, continuous and embedded state of mind.

When “Closure” pivots to underwater footage, Daniel’s pursuit takes on a profoundly mournful connotation. The imagery beneath the surface evokes the feeling that Daniel is right there with Chris, submerged and drowning as he tries to reach him. When someone suggests to him that people in bygone times would dump loaves of bread into lakes and rivers when someone had drowned, Daniel starts sticking trackers into sturdy pieces of bread and tries it. It’s clear that his every financial resource is dedicated to this quest.

Behind Daniel’s handsomely rugged, bearded face lies a perpetual melancholy. In one instance, under an open sky, he shares with Marczak that he’s made it a point to try to smile more at work in spite of the sadness that plagues him. Neither subject nor artist can say with certainty what the objective of human existence is, but the making of “Closure,” his exchanges with Marczak and a newly found sense of purpose when families of other people thought to have died in bodies of water contact him appear to slowly pull Daniel out of the blinding fog.

The only solace for him may be in acts of service for others who share a similar wound, one that will never fully heal. If consolation is anywhere, it’s in Daniel’s fresh appreciation for the here and now, away from the depths of despair, on the shores of life.

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