Waiting for the Hearse

Esperando la Carroza (Waiting for the hearse) was voted the best Argentine comedy ever. Well deserved title. The pace is unrelenting and the characters are spot on. This comedy of errors is so well played by artists at the top of their careers that you cannot stop laughing from start to finish. Antonio Gasalla (Mamá Cora) took his character out of the movie and gave it a life of its own on Argentine TV. China Zorrilla and Antonio Gasalla, with due respect to all the other players, make the movie turn around them. This movie reached its 25th anniversary and will reach the 30th with the same vitality, for people born and raised in Buenos Aires: seems like this movie could have been shot yesterday May 9, 2012 - is timeless, is funny, is "a feel good" movie. If you want to know what means living a weekend with everyday people in an everyday neighborhood in Buenos Aires you cannot miss this movie. If you can, listen to the Spanish dialog with an Argentine friend or relative: the subtleties are priceless.

This film, boisterously noisy and overcharged with frantic bursting vitality, shows us a slice of Mediterranean life in a Buenos Aires (Argentina) humble working class neighborhood (Buenos Aires includes 49 neighborhoods and 11 million inhabitants, including the surrounding jurisdictions). Only half a dozen of them could be considered middle class, another four or five high class; the rest the working, poorer class.

From the beginning the tottering figure of Mamá Cora (Antonio Gasella in drag and full make up as an old lady), dizzily walking alone towards the camera in a long shot, accompanied by Feliciano Brunelli's accordion yodeling a sort of polka music from the 50s (he was extremely popular with the masses at that time), sets the mood for what is coming (And what is coming is consistently and relentlessly amusing and in crescendo to the very end of the movie, here again, the very cheerful Feliciano Brunelli's accordion closes the last credits, and you feel like having eaten a great dish of tasty ravioli with sauce and grated Provolone cheese in abundance).

A crazily-quilted interaction of dislocated characters mouthing lively dialogue (Gross..., oh, SO gross... both characters and dialogue) and having a ball. They talk and talk at dizzying speed (I doubt very much that the translation can really catch up with the double entendre of half of the overlapping dialogue, for most of the time ALL of them are screaming at the top of their voices and simultaneously).

All actors grasp the screwball comedy style of this director (Alejandro Doria) beautifully. Subtlety is not even remotely connected with this outrageous comedy.

Mónica Villa (Susana) is outstandingly good as the long-suffering housewife always on the verge of an earth shaking nervous breakdown, looking like a wet mouse. One wonders if the actress didn't really break down! So authentic is her performance full of passion and vital detail (Bette Davies would have killed for this role).

Her mother in law, Mamá Cora (Antonio Gasella in drag) is driving her nuts with her full-fledge Alzheimer. Gasella does an excellent interpretation of this dizzy old lady loosing all her bearings, but I don't get it: Why was he chosen to play this role when towards the end appears a real old lady (A friend of Mamá Cora that comes to the house) that could have been THE perfect Mamá Cora (I think that Gasella must have been a popular comic at the time and maybe he made that character popular, I guess).

Betiana Blum (Nora), excellent (In very broad and obvious acting terms) as the flashy nouveau-riche wife of one of the three brothers in the story and the only pretty female in the cast.

China Zorrilla (a very well known and loved actress in Argentina, that even now, 22 years later is still going strong and is very convincing within the limits of her overheated and theatrical school of acting.

Darío Grandinetti: I failed to notice him in this old movie, maybe because he was too young then.

All performances are uniformly good. The director conventional but very efficient, since with his ear for tempo keeps everything firmly under control and makes it fun to watch, although it is blatant and flashy in a very heavy-handed way.

Only to be seen when you long for a Marx Brothers film but don't have one handy.

This movie is extremely interesting. It shows the reality of a typical Argentinian family (In the 80s, but more or less the same story is happening nowadays). Basically the movie is about an *ancient* lady who is almost left alone by her own family, because as she is old and annoying nobody want to live with her. So every member of the family tries to avoid the idea of having *mommy* at home, but when they find out that she got lost, they start to seem worried. You should see this film if you enjoy sarcastic comments, funny dialogs and lovely characters. Every actor/actress in this movie is a real good one.

I've seen this movie recently and I really enjoyed it.

Although it shows a problem many families deal with (having an old person in the family, and not knowing what to do with him/her), it shows it in a funny way.

It tells the story about Mamá Cora (Antonio Gasalla), a woman in her eighties who apparently, it's disturbing in her bigger son's house. Her son's wife wants her out of the house, as she is driving her mad. Mamá Cora tries to help, but unfortunately, everything she does, she does it wrongly.

The family goes through lots of trouble, trying to solve what to do with Mamá Cora. While all this happens, a confusion makes the family believe she dies, and that leads to the funniest scenes of the comedy, although the whole movie is hilarious.

If want to rent a good comedy, I strongly recommend you to go for "Esperando la Carroza". Not to mention the outstanding performances of actors like China Zorrilla, Betiana Blum and Luis Brandoni, among others.

My score 10/10. Excellent movie.

This movie is an Argentinean masterpiece. There is not a single moment when I don't find myself laughing. Every single actor, including the ones in supporting roles, are beyond excellent. The movie was just re-released for its twentieth anniversary and it is a must for any collector of comedy. This is comedy at its best. The character of Mama Cora, played by Antonio Gasalla is the most convincing portrayal of an elderly woman I have ever seen. His mannerisms, gait, etc. are superb. Although this story portrays an Argentinean family dealing with the dilemma of taking care of an elderly mother, this is a story that could happen to any family in any place in the world. Enrique Pinti has a minor role as Felipe, the family drunk, that is beyond belief. I highly recommend this great film.