La muerte de un burócrata (Der Tod eines Bürokraten)

Gutiérrez Alea’s satire on the absurdity of bureaucracy is a milestone of Cuban cinema. With humor, he subverts the idealization of building Caribbean socialism and—with stylistic flair—depicts a breed of people found the world over: bureaucrats of every gender. The plot is simple: a revolutionary worker is buried with his work card, yet without the document, his widow cannot claim a pension. Her nephew comes to her aid, only to be swept up in the vortex of a Kafkaesque bureaucracy. The film is framed by cinematic references: dreams à la Buñuel, predicaments à la Harold Lloyd, brawls à la Laurel & Hardy, and so on. "Everything seen in the film exists in reality," Alea observed; Salvador Wood’s poignant portrayal of the nephew transforms the story into an existential comedy.