The Executioner

Luis Garcia Berlanga's black comedy about an apprentice undertaker who marries the daughter of a veteran prison executioner and reluctantly takes his father-in-law's job so that they do not lose their government apartment is a social satire with a sly sense of humor. The 1963 film, produced under the heavy censorship of General Francisco Franco's dictatorial reign, slips its commentary into an energetic comedy that veers into farce. Nino Manfredi plays José Luis Rodríguez, a frustrated young undertaker, who is befriended by state executioner Amadeo (José Isbert), a garrulous, lonely old man who takes pride in his work. José marries Amadeo's daughter Carmen (Emma Penella) in this comedy of errors (or at least reluctant decisions) that leads the undertaker to take an unwanted murderous job. A satire of government bureaucracy, a portrait of working class desperation and hopelessness, and an indictment of the political machinery that sends prisoners to their death, Berlanga's story of a reluctant executioner becomes a commentary on the passivity of citizens who spend their lives trying to fit into an irrational system and end up trapped in a nightmare. It is both funny and smart, a classic of Spanish cinema and a subversive work of art made within a restrictive system. Bowing on DVD and Blu-ray in a handsome Criterion Collection edition, extras include a new interview with filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, a featurette on Berlanger, and a 2009 TV program on the film. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)