Plácido

Plácido; satire / black comedy, Spain, 1961, D: Luis García Berlanga, S: Cassen, José María Caffarel, Manuel Alexandre, Elvira Quintillá, José Luis López Vázquez

A small town. Alonso Placido uses his motorcycle as a makeshift vehicle to promote the upcoming annual charity event: each Christmas eve, the wealthy stage an event where poor people come to the homes of the rich to eat dinner with them. Alonso received a bank note ordering his first payment for the motorcycle, but he does not have enough money to pay at the bank. Actors arrive from Madrid to host the event on stage, sponsored by a food pot company. A lot of trouble shows up: a radio reporter wants to interview a poor man who is the guest at the home of a rich family, but the man has no time to speak since he spends the time eating. Another poor man gets drunk at the home of a banker. A third poor man suddenly feels sick, a doctor is summoned, but the guest dies. The rich family pays Alonso to discreetly take away the corpse, as to not spoil their Christmas, and thus Alonso now has enough money to pay his bill and return to his home. The wife of the deceased poor man cries at their home.

One of several social satires by director Luis Garcia Berlanga that were subtly critical of the Francoist dictatorship in Spain at that time, "Plácido" is a dark allegory on the fact that compassion and kindness are scarce in the world, and that the only charity available is that one day of the year, on Christmas eve, but even that is done just for show, for the wealthy to promote themselves. Berlanga is not as inspired as he could have been: the jokes are rather thin and not developed further than just the bare concept of each situation, which inhibits both the development of the movie and the enjoyment value of the viewers. However, Berlanga is able to create a sly "anti-Christmas", anti-holiday movie that is a biting criticism of religion and society in general. The plot of poor men getting invited for dinner at the homes of the rich people is cozy, but were not elaborated, and were narrowed down to only three examples shown on film, which is rather meagre. The best episode is the one where a poor guest suddenly becomes dizzy during dinner and dies on the chair, causing the wife and husband to angrily search for the protagonist Alonso to take away the corpse, as to not ruin their Christmas. As the corpse is being taken away from the house to be dumped back at his home, the message is obvious: these people are not true philanthropists, they even despise the poor and consider them as a burden, and are only preoccupied with whitewashing their conscience at the end of the year to resume being back to their old rotten selves again. All this is amusing, yet a tighter director's hand and a more versatile viewing experience would have been welcomed.

Grade:++