I am not generally a fan of zany comedies that feel the need to keep a frenetic pace as dozens of characters talk one over the other as if chaos alone is funny. It's therefore quite an achievement that Luis García Berlanga's Plácido managed to keep me invested, much less make sense of the individual stories of its large cast. Central to this black Christmas comedy is the character of Plácido, a driver who is desperate to make his payment on his vehicle before it is impounded, but Fate (and a selfish event organizer) continually throw wrenches into the works. Threaded on his story are all the others, as a small Spanish spends a chaotic Christmas night thanks to a charitable program where rich families invite a poor person for dinner, even as pseudo-movie stars descend on the town to help raise money. In the end, charity is merely a function of propriety and rich families bend over backwards to make sure they don't look bad in front of other rich families while the poor are essentially abused under cover of Christian kindness. We're thrown into the deep end, but once we learn to follow the parade, it's actually pretty fun.
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Siskoid
I am not generally a fan of zany comedies that feel the need to keep a frenetic pace as dozens of characters talk one over the other as if chaos alone is funny. It's therefore quite an achievement that Luis García Berlanga's Plácido managed to keep me invested, much less make sense of the individual stories of its large cast. Central to this black Christmas comedy is the character of Plácido, a driver who is desperate to make his payment on his vehicle before it is impounded, but Fate (and a selfish event organizer) continually throw wrenches into the works. Threaded on his story are all the others, as a small Spanish spends a chaotic Christmas night thanks to a charitable program where rich families invite a poor person for dinner, even as pseudo-movie stars descend on the town to help raise money. In the end, charity is merely a function of propriety and rich families bend over backwards to make sure they don't look bad in front of other rich families while the poor are essentially abused under cover of Christian kindness. We're thrown into the deep end, but once we learn to follow the parade, it's actually pretty fun.patato
(removed by mod: please post in English)