I was lucky enough to see this at a film preview in London - surrounded by film reviewers and other freeloaders - and was fairly open minded about it having had success with a similarly low budget El Mariachi years earlier.
At a train station, two half-brothers head to their father's funeral in small town Spain - they were raised separately by different mothers - and couldn't be more different. One a trendy city type, and the other is a more bohemian musician who, naturally have no affinity to each other.
After the helpful locals point out that the trains don't run any more, they end up taking different means of transport to the funeral and reluctantly form a relationship along the way. As things get more desperate ...and the transport more ropey... emotions get more tense and things start getting more surreal.
Now this could have been either stunningly predictable, or given the budget (of next to nothing), a disaster. It was neither. After a slow start, the characters came through, odd characters came and went and gradually my smile grew more and more permanent during the screening. The film is photographed beautifully, the acting great, and the story fun and not predictable in the least.
The term "the honour among thieves" gets new and hilarious meaning in this film and, honestly, whenever I think of that incident in the film I smile like a crazy person. Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to see the director/writer/cinematographer/editor's next film.
