The cabin

La cabina is a Spanish medium-length film directed by Antonio Mercero in 1972, co-written by himself along with José Luis Garci and starring José Luis López Vázquez. It was broadcast for the first time on Spanish Television on December 13, 1972, and won an International Emmy Award for Best TV Movie and a Fotogramas de Plata for Best TV Performer for José Luis López Vázquez in 1973.

Plot

The plot develops a Kafkaesque parable developed by the filmmaker José Luis Garci and the director Antonio Mercero, who wrote the script.

First thing in the morning, some workers set up a phone booth in the middle of a square. Later, a man passes by who is accompanying his son to the school bus stop. When his son leaves on the bus, the man walks past the booth and decides to go in to make a call. Without him noticing, the door closes behind him. The man realizes that the phone is not working and goes to leave, but discovers that the door is stuck and will not open. He repeatedly tries to open it, but is unsuccessful. Two men who pass by and see him try to help him by opening from the outside, but they are unsuccessful. The situation attracts the attention of an increasing number of passers-by, who are congregating around the booth to watch the man and attempts to remove him. Several people (a burly and strong man, another man with a screwdriver and two policemen) try to open the door, but no one succeeds.

Finally, the firefighters arrive, trying to break the glass roof of the cabin and get it out, but when they are about to do so, the same workers who installed the cabin arrive, disassemble it and load it into their truck, with the man still locked inside. The crowd smiles and happily sends the man off. He can only watch helplessly as he is transported through the city. He tries to ask people who see him for help, but people just smile, wave or laugh at him. The truck stops at a traffic light next to another truck carrying another cab of the same type, with another man trapped inside. Both men try to communicate, but cannot.

After a long journey, the truck arrives at a mysterious underground warehouse where the man watches hundreds of cabins just like his being built and prepared. The cabin is lifted with a magnet and deposited on a forklift, which transports it through the warehouse, filled with cabins containing corpses and mummified remains of other trapped people. The man desperately tries to get out but is unable to escape. The cabin is deposited together with the others in the warehouse and the man sees next to him the other man that he had seen trapped in another cabin during his trip, who has committed suicide by hanging himself with the telephone cable. Distraught and desperate, the man collapses inside the cabin until he is out of shot.

The film ends with the same operators installing another identical cabin in the same square, leaving it with the door ajar, ready for the next victim.

Cast

• José Luis López Vázquez interprets the man who is locked in the cabin.
• Agustín González interprets another man who has also been locked in another cabin of the same model.

Production

La cabina was one of the 13 steps through the unusual that Antonio Mercero, Horacio Valcárcel and José Luis Garci proposed to work together in some project, although the project never came to fruition. Despite this, Mercero persuaded the directors of RTVE to make the medium-length film, citing the success of his series Crónicas de un pueblo. Then the managers decided to accept it as a prize for the success of said series on the basis that "The previous series was nothing more than propaganda for Francoism."

Despite this, the censors of the time complained because a ministry was leaving, but Mercero saw it again and told them that it was the Nuevos Ministerios station and complained. However, the cut was finally made.

After the project was approved, they set out to choose the protagonist and almost the only character in the story. In April 1972 they both went on a trip to New York and, after climbing the Statue of Liberty, they both came up with the idea that José Luis López Vázquez should play the character. Garci wanted it because it reminded him of Italians. Marcello Mastroianni and Vittorio Gassman for knowing how to show comic and tragic moments at the same time, while Mercero was looking for a mime who could be able to make the gestures to represent the character's situations.

José Luis López Vázquez received the script during the filming of the Pedro Lazaga film El vikingo, when he read it he fell in love with the story and told his manager, José María Gavilán, to speak with whom he had made commitments, so that these were postponed and he could shoot the film.

Shooting

Filming began on July 17, 1972, it continued throughout the month of August of the same year and took place in the Plaza de Arapiles in Madrid at point 40.4321783,-3.7062124 (where it begins the film), the Scalextric of Atocha, the underground passages, some recently built avenues in Madrid, the Madrid outskirts, the wastelands of the city, in some places in Portugal, the facilities of the Aldeadávila Dam and the cargo terminal of the Airport of Barajas. During the filming, José Luis López Vázquez was afraid while he was inside the cabin; Despite this, his interest in the work made him disciplined and contribute ideas during filming.

The phone booth was painted red to create distress. The glass part was also changed to plastic, which was more difficult to break and would open when shooting from the front to allow air to enter the actor.

Broadcasts of the medium-length film

La cabina was broadcast for the first time on La 1 on December 13, 1972, later on the same channel on November 24, 1973 and the December 20, 1992. It was also broadcast by La 2 on April 27, 1993, October 28, 1996 and November 27, 1998. After the death of López Vázquez, it was posted on the official website of RTVE, being able to watch open and for free within Spanish territory.

Reception

The critics valued the film very positively, highlighting above all the masterful performance of José Luis López Vázquez. However, when it was broadcast on television on December 13, 1972, it was misunderstood by the Spanish public, although it is true that It produced fear in the spectators, who did not close the cabin door for fear of being locked in.

The medium-length film was broadcast all over the world, something that no other Spanish television work has yet achieved and became the most awarded program on Spanish television.

Among his numerous awards, the Don Quixote de Oro from the Spanish critics for Best Director for Mercero, the National Television Award in 1973, stand out; the 1973 Ondas Award for Mercero, the 1973 Emmy Award for Best Telefilm; the best dramatic program on Channel 47 in New York in 1973, the International Critics' Award at the Monte Carlo Festival 1973; Marconi Prize from the MIFED of Milan 1973; and the 1972 Fotogramas de Plata for best television actor for José Luis López Vázquez.

Interpretations of the medium-length film

Critics of the time interpreted the work in very different ways, from the fact that it was a political approach with a criticism of the Franco dictatorship to a religious film symbolizing the helicopter to the Holy Spirit. However, Antonio Mercero affirmed that both he and José Luis Garci wanted to move more towards the field of horror or science fiction cinema than towards this type of approach, although he defined it as "a parable open to all kinds of interpretations, and according to the sensitivity, culture and training of each one, will be interpreted differently.

Among the criticisms of Spanish society at that time are the use of force as a means to solve problems, the incompetence of public services or the ridicule of authority. Despite the time and the fact that the critics of the moment interpreted it as explained, over the years it has been given the assessment of a psychological horror film. The psychologist José Antonio García Higuera interpreted the telephone booth as a cave from which we can leave but we do not want for fear of the outside.

Post exploitation and legacy

In 1973 the publishing house Helios marketed a book of the film. The medium-length film was released in VHS format in 1989. It would be released on DVD within the Antonio Mercero Pack on February 21, 2006. Due to the fear of certain viewers of being locked in telephone booths, Telefónica asked José Luis López Vázquez to participate in various announcements of the company's shares, known as "Matildes". In one of them he was locked in the cabin, but finally managed to get out.

In 1998, José Luis López Vázquez starred in an advertisement for Retevisión, in which the cabin door opened and he could go outside. This symbolized the end of Telefónica's monopoly and the liberalization of the telephony market in Spain. However, the directors did not ask Mercero for permission to carry out the ad, so he filed a complaint against the directors of Retevisión.Finally, the directors affirmed that it was based on the medium-length film and the litigation did not take place.

On December 15, 2021, a replica of the red telephone booth was inaugurated as a tribute to the film and its director Antonio Mercero, in the Chamberí district of Madrid, very close to where the film was shot. The tribute was promoted by the scriptwriter and television director David Linares with the #UnaCabinaParaMercero campaign, supported by the Fundación Telefónica and the Film Academy.