Carlos Ruiz de la Tejera

The dictator Anastasio rules with an iron fist backed by business-men making deals and speeches about building canals, completely disconnected from the chaos amongst the population. Anastasio is rumored to have died after an incident with a mirror and a violent confrontation after literally crowing as a cock amongst his chicken followers. The afterlife is shown as a casino where Anastasio strong-arms his way into heaven. Divination is used to find the next dictator, and a sailor and his black, peasant sidekick find themselves attempting to start a revolution with an organ, dragging it through the countryside, as the movie explores the country, culture and music.

A model Cuban revolutionary tragically dies at work and, as a badge of honor, is buried with his labor card in his suit pocket. When his widow attempts to apply for his pension, the pension office demands the original labor card. Desperate, his nephew embarks on an increasingly chaotic and surreal quest through the Cuban bureaucratic system to secure permission to exhume the body, only to be met with endless forms, contradictory regulations, and apathetic officials.

A bourgeois Cuban family of aristocratic origin locks itself into its mansion when the Cuban Revolution comes to power, waiting for the new regime to be overthrown. As time passes, they regress to older and older systems of political order, from capitalism to feudalism to "primitive savagery."

In 1672 Cuban revolutionaries launch an uprising against the Spanish who are occupying the country. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2017.