Spanish coral film dealing with a merciless denounce to hypocrite society located at a luxury mansion , being masterfully directed by veteran Berlanga and full of a high level of ingenious humor , including relentless critical but in malevolent intention . A bustling comedy with an excellent plethora of Spanish players and an interesting screenplay , being based on a story written the same director , and collaboration of his usual, Rafael Azcona . Early the seventies when in Spain takes place the replacement of Falangist ministers by Opus Dei members . There appears Jaime Ganivel (José Sazatornil ¨Saza¨) , a Catalán entrepreneur of mechanical porters along with his lover (Monica Randall) . Jaime organizes a hunting party in the mansion and countryside of the Marquis De Leguineche (the forgotten stage actor : Luis Escobar who steals the show) , located in Guadalajara , to convince some powerful people and ministers to install the automatic porters . The farm where it is organized is full of strange roles and Ganivel has to do everything to get his aims .
In the flick there are especially busy comedy , ironical humor , frantic pace , joy , amusing gags , rowdy satire , noisy hustle and social critical . Furthermore , it contains certain confusion , bustle and relies heavily in exaggerated mayhem ; being in anyway clearly a superior film , a Berlanga's masterpiece . One time finished the Franquist dictatorship , Berlanga along with his regular screenwriter Azcona carry out the realization a known trilogy about the political and social Spanish situation , concerning on the peculiar aristocratic family of the Marquis of Leguineche . Shot in long , complex shots : ¨Planos Secuencia¨, with a lot of rare characters talking , shouting and walking . The main and support actors stand out under perfect direction of Berlanga very far from the tenderness that carried out in previous works , including a bitter , pessimistic mirror on the Spanish society by that time . We can find very fun roles , all of them caricatures and mirrors of the Spanish society of the seventies , concerning the national reality in ironical and critical style . The movie displays a Spanish star-studded such as : Jose Sazatornil as the egoistic Catalan manufacturer who attends with her lover on a hunt to relate to important people and in a similar role to starred in ¨Todos a la Carcel¨, Jose Luis Lopez Vazquez , Agustin Gonzalez (Berlanga's also regular), Amparo Soler Leal , Chus Lampreave (Almodovar's ordinary) , Fernando Hilbeck , Luis Politti , Conchita Montes , Laly Soldevilla , and Luis Ciges . It belongs to the third period in Berlanga career characterized by commercial and comical films , adding a point of view as critical as realist . Its big success originated 2 sequels ¨Patrimonio Nacional¨(80) dealing with monarchy restoration and ¨Nacional III¨(82) about the power rising of Socialists . Berlanga's conceptual and political audacity, so evident in this film that achieved a big hit . It turned out to be a nice picture plenty of diverting situations as well as black humor and social hypocrisy .
Direction by Luis Garcia Berlanga is pretty good , he shows his skill for edition , realizing long shots with crowd who moves easily and shows the miseries of an amoral society . Evocative and atmospheric cinematography by Carlos Suarez . Berlanga filmed several polemic movies during the 50s , all of them were beset by difficulties with the censors caused by real critical to social stratum such as ¨Bienvenido Mister Marshall¨ (1953) , a very good film which tended not to be very well received by the censor for its acidity and considered to be one of the best Spanish films of the history , including a strong portrait of Spanish society and plenty of sharpness . But the main problem is that if you are foreigner you will have to know well the Spanish society to understand the double-senses . His next joint venture was ¨Los Jueves, Milagro¨ (1957), it was modified by the censors and delayed for several years before its eventual release . Subsequently , Berlanga made ¨Placido¨ (1961) masterfully played by Cassen , this is the film debut for the great producer Alfredo Matas and received an Oscar nomination in 1963 , being well-received at the International Festivals , reviewing the useless charity , it's a sublime film but with censorship realized by this great maestro Luis Garcia Berlanga . Later on , Berlanga made one of his best films: ¨El Verdugo¨ (1963), one of the undisputed masterpieces and fundamental in filmography of Luis Garcia Berlanga and shot at the height of his creativity, in a period cultural difficult, where the enormous censorship of the political regime, exacerbated the ingenuity and imagination of the scriptwriters . He continued filming other interesting pictures as in 1973 he went to Paris to begin filming ¨Grandeur nature¨ with Michael Piccoli , another problematic film , focusing this time on the fetishism of a man who falls in love with a doll . Several years later , after Franco's death, he filmed a trilogy comprising ¨La Escopeta Nacional¨ (1978), ¨Patrimonio Nacional¨ (1981) and ¨Nacional III¨ (1982), where he clarified the evident disorders in the Spanish upper , middle-class upon being confronted with a new political status quo , realizing a sour denounce of the Spanish society . Berlanga ulteriorly shot a peculiar film titled ¨La Vaquilla¨ (1985) plenty of Spanish-star-cast and set in the Spanish Civil War , resulting to be the first time dealing with this convulsive period in comedy style . Following the same themes, he went on filming coral films such as ¨Moros and Cristianos¨ and ¨Todos a Carcel¨ (1993) that won three Goya Awards for Best Film, Best Director and Best Sound ; being his final film : ¨Paris Tombuctu¨. Rating : 7.5/10 . Essential and indispensable watching for Berlanga aficionados . Well worth seeing .
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