La Comunidad (5 Stars)

"Who cares about everyone else? We're different. We're neighbours".

That's a very loose translation of Spanish dialogue in the film. I paraphrased it to omit the swear words.

I should be ashamed of myself. For years I've been telling people that Alex de la Iglesia is my favourite European director, and yet I've never watched this film. Many consider it to be his best film. Personally, I prefer "800 Bullets", but I still consider it to be a masterpiece. "Masterpiece" is a word I use often in this blog, probably too often, but this time it's well deserved.

"La Comunidad" means "the community", but in the context of this film it's better translated as "neighbours". Different families live in an apartment building in the centre of Madrid. They all know one another, and they're united by one common motivation: greed.

An eccentric old man won 300 million Pesetas in the lottery. Allowing for inflation, that would be about four million dollars today. He didn't trust the banks. so he kept the money in cash in his apartment. The neighbours all knew about it, so they swore a pact to divide the money between themselves after his death. They were all so paranoid about missing out that none of them went on holiday for years while they were waiting for him to die.

Eventually he died. There are two problems. The first problem is that a knew tenant has moved into the building who isn't part of the friendly neighbourly community. She's the first person to enter the man's apartment after his death. She knows nothing about him or his winnings, but she finds bags of money and takes them into her apartment.

The second problem is that Spain has recently changed its currency to the Euro. (This happened on January 1st 1999). It's still the transition period, so she can spend the money, but it won't last long. She needs to exchange it in a bank.

The neighbours soon realise she has the money. First they try to steal the money from her, and when that fails they resort to violence. They might have succeeded if they'd held together, but in their greed they turn against one another

This is an utterly amazing film. It's a masterpiece, in case I didn't say it already. On the one hand it's a social drama about the results of greed. On the other hand there are comic moments that lighten the mood. People die in the most ridiculous ways. The atmosphere is reinforced by filming scenes against the background of famous Madrid landmarks.

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