Review of Death of a Bureaucrat (1966) by Alonso A — 04 Feb 2012

I was so lukewarm about everything in the movie. Yeah, it borrows a lot of different styles from different films, which you would think would give more appreciation to the film, but the problem is that it was lacking a style of its own.

I was just bored with everything. But it doesn't necessarily suck so bad that it's unwatchable. The story just gets old. A guy's Uncle is buried with his work card, so he and his Aunt are working to bury the body up, and once it's up they have to go through this crazy process to get the forms to put him back in the ground.

That's a bureaucracy for you. Isn't it funny? Well, at first it is. But even at 85 minutes, the film outstays its welcome. It does my pet peeve of making things happen that wouldn't actually happen, but the filmmakers thought it would be funny.

And we never really get to know anything about the lead character, except he is going through hell to get this paperwork finished. It's fantastic to see a film like this be able to be made through a strict country such as Cuba at the time.

It makes sense to watch it in class during this time period and after everything we talked about, but I don't see how this is considered a classic.