La Cabina (1972)
A film by Antonio Mercero
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This short surreal Spanish film directed by Antonio Mercero is one of those films that you will never forget. The story is simple. A man (played by José Luis López Vázquez) takes his young son to school. On the way home he sees a telephone box with its door slightly ajar, as if it's a Venus fly trap, waiting to snare its victims. He enters the booth and tries to make a call, but he finds the phone is out of order.
When the man entered, the door closed behind him, he tries to open it, he cannot. He struggles inside and tries everything to get out. He shouts at passers-by, who glare at the poor man. They are helpless, too. Then a fireman gets a sledgehammer, and just has he attempts to hit the glass, a phone company truck appears with four men in it, honking its horn as if to say this man is ours, we have caught him.
They then put the telephone box on the back of the truck with the man still inside. They take him on a journey through the streets. While stopped at traffic lights, the man looks at the side and sees another man trapped in a telephone box on the back of a truck, just like him. The journey reaches its conclusion as the truck enters a huge underground factory complex. Inside the building the terror is revealed, as rows and rows of telephone boxes are lined up, each with a dead person inside; one has strangled himself with the phone cord. The man knows his fate is sealed and panic sets in.
The end shot is of the phone company men cleaning the phone box and putting it back in the same location and opening its door slightly ajar again. I first watched this film when I was about eight years-old and it's always stayed with me. I wouldn't go into a phone box for a while afterwards, in fear of being trapped inside.
Note: La Cabina won the 1972 Emmy International Award - Fiction.
A new telephone box arrives
The trap is set
I think I'll make a phone call
The phone is out of order...
And the man is trapped
Passers-by try to help
A spectacle for onlookers
The glaring gallery
The cake thief
Four workmen arrive
The telephone box is put on to a truck
The journey begins
A lucky chap
Another victim
Helpless
A ship trapped in a bottle
A helicopter's view
The winding road. Almost there
Arriving at the factory
Men cleaning telephone boxes
A truck leaves loaded with telephone boxes
The truck arrives at its destination
The telephone box is raised off the truck
The four men leave in the truck
The conveyor-belt ride
The terror is revealed
Panic
Cadavers in telephone boxes...
Galore
The man on the other truck
The man's fate is sealed
A new telephone box's door is opened
