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The Executioner



This masterpiece of black humor, beloved in Spain but too little seen elsewhere, threads a scathing critique of Franco-era values through a macabre farce about an undertaker who marries an executioner's daughter and reluctantly takes over her father's job so the family can keep their government-allotted apartment. As caustic today as it was in 1963, this early collaboration between Luis García Berlanga and his longtime screenwriter Rafael Azcona is an unerring depiction of what Berlanga called "the invisible traps that society sets up for us." A furiously funny personal attack on capital punishment, The Executioner escaped the state censors who sought to suppress it, and today is regarded as one of the greatest Spanish films of all time.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interview with filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar
• New program on director Luis García Berlanga, featuring interviews with his son José Luis Berlanga; film critic Carlos F. Heredero; writers Fernando R. Lafuente and Bernardo Sánchez Salas; and director of the Berlanga Film Museum Rafael Maluenda
• Spanish television program from 2012 on The Executioner, featuring archival interviews with Berlanga
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by film critic David Cairns

This is so spectacularly unexpected and exciting and I hope this sells amazingly well so they can quickly follow-up with Placido. It really does seem with this and Wooden Clogs (and that every release this month seems absolutely stacked with supplements) that Criterion's really found its groove again this year after a strangely just so 2015.

Most exciting release of the month. Flat out surprises seem rarer and rarer from Criterion these days, but props where they're due for this one

I'm in on this one.

You guys are in for a treat. Berlanga is amazing. Would love to have an extra or an essay exploring how he is a sort of Altman before Altman, specially in choral films like "Placido".

Easy preorder for me.

Is this film tonally similar to Bunuel? What should one expect?

Ribs wrote:This is so spectacularly unexpected and exciting and I hope this sells amazingly well so they can quickly follow-up with Placido.

Seconded. Placido's manic pace and zany, madcap nature (the extended Christmas dinner scene is spectacular) make it my favorite of the Berlanga's I've seen. Defintely on a par with The Executioner and Bienvenido, Mr. Marshall.

This is an amazing film!

to Drucker: not, Berlanga is not Buñuel. Berlanga's humor and point of view is totally Italian Comedy style as Scola, Risi, Monicelli or Ferreri. Azcona wrote most of Ferreri's films and all Berlangas.

Emma Penella is the daughter of the man who delayed and caught Federico García Lorca and said that of QUOTATION "this deserves to put a rifle into his faggot's arse"QUOTATION.
Penella was mostly dubbed by others. Here she speaks with her own voice. Penella's two sisters also are actresses.
Manfredi is Roman, so for purist, may be you prefer the bas Italian DVD where he speaks with his own voice (absurd).

José Isbert is the most beloved classic actor in Spain.

Belanga fought against the Soviets with the Nazis in the famous División Azul. He was volunteer for washing his father's Republican past during the War,

The Verdugo trailer is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5meN3gJyzs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The criterion cover is dreadful.

rohmerin wrote:to Drucker: not, Berlanga is not Buñuel. Berlanga's humor and point of view is totally Italian Comedy style as Scola, Risi, Monicelli or Ferreri. Azcona wrote most of Ferreri's films and all Berlangas.

Emma Penella is the daughter of the man who delayed and caught Federico García Lorca and said that of this deserves to put a rifle into his faggot's arse. Penella was mostly dubbed by others. Here she speaks with her own voice. Penella's two sisters also are actresses.
Manfredi is Roman, so for purist, may be you prefer the bas Italian DVD where he speaks with his own voice (absurd).

José Isbert is the most beloved classic actor in Spain.

Belanga fought against the Soviets with the Nazis in the famous División Azul. He was volunteer for washing his father's Republican past during the War,

The Verdugo trailer is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5meN3gJyzs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The criterion cover is dreadful.

I don't know what's more offensive, your use of the word "faggot" or badmouting one of the best covers Criterion has ever produced. Sadly, only the former warrants an official Mod warning-- unless this is a direct quote from something (in which case it should be properly attributed and designated as such), don't use the word "faggot" in this fashion again if you want to post here

I was assuming he was quoting (since he wrote "and said") just forgot the quotations.

El maricón ése se merece que le metan el fusil por el culo. Famous words when Lorca was taken, read Paul Preston or dozens they had written about.
Maricón = faggot.
PS: I am maricón too. Some gay people in Spain used it as not insult, it depends who say that or the context.
Definitivamente there's no humor in English language, lol.

I don't think it's a case of no humour, it's just considered a really nasty, deragatory word in English.

American English. In British English it's merely a type of meatball, while a "fag" is a cigarette.

I believe "maricón" is used somewhat more liberally in Spanish-speaking countries. In any case, I'm sure rohmerin meant no offense.

Reading a lot about this movie and being a fan of Nino Manfredi's work, I was very psyched when I finally got to see it on 35mm a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, it's a terrible film. It's a very politically charged farce that has completely lost its edge, and is only barely watchable when viewed in the historical context in which is was shot (I personally find "message films" annoying, so this is not a compliment). For a film that has been described as one of the greatest Spanish films ever And especially as a political comedy, it's baffingly unfunny, and can in no way be compared to Bunuel. It's almost as horrible as Death of a Bicyclist, but in a whole other way.

jegharfangetmigenmyg wrote: It's almost as horrible as Death of a Bicyclist, but in a whole other way.

Let's not say things we can't take back!

I dimly recall seeing Death of a Cyclist but can't remember anything about it - although I seem to have reviewed it when the Criterion disc came out:

Illegitimately trysting couple Juan and Maria Jose accidentally run over a cyclist but decide not to report it, and what initially comes across as The Bonfire of the Vanities minus the political satire gradually turns into something much more intriguing. The resulting blackmail subplot is predictable enough, but university professor Juan’s conversion to his students’ cause after seeing them mount a massed protest against his slighting of one of their peers pushes the film into far more tantalising territory (Bardem was an unrepentant communist making films under Franco), and the noirish lighting and stark compositions ensure constant visual interest. However, the ridiculous melodramatic climax risks squandering much goodwill, even if it was imposed by the Spanish censor’s moral code.

If it's even half as bad as Death of a Cyclist, this must still be very bad indeed. At least this one's still got a great cover and no one can take that away from it

I saw this several years ago and frankly don't remember being impressed one way or the other, but for what it's worth, it's currently ranked the 266th best film of all time on TSPDT.

Maybe the Death of a Cyclist comment was a bit too harsh. It's not that bad. I just remember seeing this as part of a retrospective showing of films which made it through the censoring machine under Franco, and that I was very underwhelmed, to say the least. I was a bit more impressed by Saura's La caza, even though that one hadn't aged well at all, either. Maybe it's an unfair comparison, but I just find it striking that Buñuel – before he was kicked out again – managed to make one of his masterpieces, Viridiana, under the same circumstances, while these other directors were making clunky farces with "hidden" political messages built into the scripts... As I said, I just find "message movies" boring, plus this film just isn't funny whichever way you view it.

I thought it was funny, and I didn't think the political messages were all that obvious either.

However, I liked Death of a Cyclist too, so I guess I'm not cool enough to hate all the things I'm supposed to.

Spine # is listed as #840. The Tree of Wooden Clogs is presumable #841 even though it does not have a # listed on Criterion's site.