The Executioner

Perhaps Berlanga’s most elegant film, El Verdugo tells the story of a funeral-home employee who marries a government executioner’s daughter. In order to get an apartment, he agrees to take over his father-in-law’s job with the hope of never actually having to perform it. Through a savagely black humorous tone, The Executioner is a vehement censure of the death penalty, which caused the Spanish government to try (unsuccessfully) to stop it being screened at the Venice Festival and later to order numerous cuts.

A. In Spanish with English subtitles. Free admission.