No desearás la mujer del vecino

A man simulates be homosexual for be near of women and see, touch them. A very bad movie, with pedestrian and homophobic humour, it's the classic example of the old Spanish "machismo". It's very representative of a happily extinct period of Spanish cinema, and it tell name to a type of movies named "landismo" (by his leader actor, Alfredo Landa), about reprimed and sexual altered men.

Yes, it's an open machist comedy, made in 1971, but in this aspect not really different from other new Spanish comedies of the 90's and 00's (Airbag, Torrente, and so on).

This movie, done at the end of the franquist regime, can be viewed as a testimony of those times, when Spain was socially divided between the perpetuation of its traditional conservatist order and values and a social social change that was patent abroad and in many ways attained the society and the new generation. "La movida" can be seen as an extreme manifestation of this movement of social liberalization, 15 years later than it happened in other western countries.

"No desearas a la mujer de tu vecino" is a good example of what could be done at this time, with some political and social references almost impossible 5 years before. Just speaking overtly about homosexuality, even in this pejorative manner, was in many ways a courageous attempt because it faced a silly censure. So before judging this movie with the values of our time, it seems better to replace it in its historical context. The first James Bond movies and their "Sean Connery style" have eventually much less excuses for their vision of gender relationships, for example. And the true incapacity of the "macho men" to satisfy the important sexual appetite of their women in the movie is quite ambiguous...

Apart from that, you can see some points that would become recurrent in the Spanish comedies made during the democracy: sense of absurd, caricature, antiheroes, sexuality, etc. Transitions are OK. The technical aspect is not bad, too. In brief, I have seen many more recent comedies much less funnier than this, even if you're not going to lose anything not seeing it.