Waiting for the Hearse (1985)

Original title

Esperando la carroza

Directed by

Alejandro Doria

Genre

comedy film

Country

Argentina

Runtime

1h 34m

Rated

13

Rating

8.0 of 10 from 154 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A family's scheme to fake a death and collect an inheritance goes horribly wrong. The lies pile up as relatives argue and blame each other.

darkly comicchaoticfast-pacedfarcefrustratingsatiricalcringyfamily dysfunction

What happens

Waiting for the Hearse (Esperando la carroza in Spanish) is a 1985 Argentine black comedy film directed by Alejandro Doria. It opened on 6 May 1985. Originally not successful upon release, it is now considered a cult film and representative of Argentine culture. The movie belongs to the criollo grotesque (costumbrismo) genre and is based on the Uruguayan play of the same name by Jacobo Langsner, premiered by the Comedia Nacional company in 1962. The film adaptation starred local well-known figures from the theatre world, such as Antonio Gasalla, China Zorrilla, Luis Brandoni and Betiana Blum. It's considered a classic in the River Plate culture, and its reruns on TV still draw large audiences. On April 2, 2009, 23 years after the original film's release, a sequel, Waiting for the Hearse 2, was released. In a survey of the 100 greatest films of Argentine cinema carried out by the Museo del Cine Pablo Ducrós Hicken in 2000, the film reached the 12th position. In a new version of the survey organized in 2022 by the specialized magazines La vida útil, Taipei and La tierra quema, presented at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, the film reached the 16th position. Also in 2022, the film was included in Spanish magazine Fotogramas's list of the 20 best Argentine films of all time. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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