This is supposed to be a classic of Spanish cinema, a pitch black comedy and a sly anti-fascist satire. Well, I dunno about the last one, but it's certainly very good and has moments of almost shockingly dark humor. It begins at a prison, where two undertakers, a chubby middle-aged one and a younger dark-haired one, are waiting to collect the corpse of an executed prisoner. They watch as everyone still alive comes out of the chamber, including the executioner, who is a short mild-looking old man.
Nobody seems to want to be near him - one of the guards gets annoyed when he sets his bag (which we assumed had chemicals for lethal injection in it, but it turns out to be worse) on the table where his food is resting. The undertakers collect the corpse as the executioner signs for his pay and asks when the next bus arrives. The undertakers drive their van out of the prison yard, but pause outside, and, against the younger one's wishes (he is particularly repulsed by the executioner), the older one offers the old man a lift. They drop him off outside the subway and he disappears, whereupon they realize that he's left his bag in their van. The young man initially refuses to run after him with it, but the older one reminds him of his asthma, and he reluctantly sets off. Eventually he catches up with the executioner at his cramped little apartment, and the young man (our hero, José Luis Rodriguez) is surprised to find that he lives with his voluptuous daughter, Carmen, who offers him coffee and persuades him to stay (despite the fact that we know that the van is waiting, with the family of the executed man in a car behind it).
José Luis is again repulsed when the old man empties his bag and we see that it contains an iron band which is, appallingly, a garotte! (The old man peevishly defends this method of execution in contrast to the French guillotine and the American electric chair, but I must say I'd never even heard of a such a method.) Next we see José Luis back at his apartment, or rather, the apartment of his tailor brother, sister-in-law and two children, one of which (a toddler girl) they keep sending to sleep in his bed when they want to get intimate.
He is clearly fed up with this life, and is quickly scheming to move in with the executioner and daughter. Everybody seems happy with this idea - she likes him and both realize that their respective statuses of undertaker and executioner's daughter repel suitors, and it is only right that they find each other, and the father takes a shine to José Luis. At least, until one day he returns unexpectedly and finds that he has been canoodling with Carmen.
Canoodling to such an extent that shortly thereafter she gives him the news that he is to be a father. There follows shortly a wedding, that is so clearly done on the cheap that they are rolling up the carpet and snuffing out the candles from a previous, more luxurious wedding as the priest is reading out the vows. But all is not bad news: a new, luxurious three-bedroom apartment is being built that has the executioner's name on it, as a state employee. They are checking it out in unfinished form (and shooing away the man taking a shit in the fields out back) when a rival family shows up with papers showing that they, also have been promised this apartment.
Fortunately the executioner has the prior claim, but two snags emerge. First, he is to be forced into retirement in a few months, which will mean that he will no longer be a state employee and thus no longer eligible, and second, his daughter has to be unmarried to be eligible to live with him anyway. This is the point at which he settles on the plan of making José Luis his successor. As you might imagine, José Luis is not happy about this. He is momentarily cheered when he hears that there are 36 prior applicants for the job (jobs are very scarce in early 60s Spain, it seems), but the executioner has other tricks up his sleeve and pulls some strings, and José Luis does indeed get the job. Again, temporarily life is good - the pay is good, the apartment is great, he loves Carmen and their new son, but he obsessively checks the crime section of the newspaper to see if anyone has been condemned. Eventually somebody is, and he gets word that he is to go to Palma Majorca to execute a man. Stricken, he immediately sits down to write his resignation, but (in what is a theme throughout the film) his father-in-law talks him down, reassuring him that the condemned man is bound to be pardoned - this always happens. They should all take a trip to sunny Palma Majorca (Carmen is excited about the honeymoon she never got to have) and in the unlikely event the condemned man is not pardoned, why then José Luis can resign on the spot, having at least got a trip out of it. Again, things seem to go well - they get there and there's a Miss United Nations contest going on, which (assures the old man) adds greatly to the likelihood of a pardon, and Palma Majorca is a seaside paradise. Things get hairy on the first day, as José Luis is whisked off to the prison (and his father in law is forbidden from coming too) but to his great relief, the condemned man is too ill to be executed, and he is told he has to stay put for as long as it takes, thus extending their vacation. Everything's coming up roses! There are even sexy foreigners to flirt with.
And underground caverns to boat in! And even if everything goes wrong and he is finally called to the execution, and no pardon is forthcoming, he can always just resign on the spot, right? Well...
This is probably a film that rewards re-watching, in part because the director Luis Garcia Berlanga (whom Almodovar rates as at least Buñuel's equal) loves crowding the frame with bickering characters who constantly talk across each other. (In fact, Almodovar speculates that one of the reasons Berlanga lacks Buñuel's international reputation is because of the difficulty of subtitling such cross-talk.) There's a definite Jacques Tati-esque inventiveness to some of the mise-en-scène, combined with an affectionate view of the foibles of humans straining against poverty and an oppressive government. At least, right up to the final sad gut punch.
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