''La Cabina'' ( en, The Telephone Box) is a

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar tim ...

television film directed by

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

director

Antonio Mercero Antonio Mercero Juldain (7 March 1936 – 12 May 2018) was a Spanish director of the television series ''Verano azul'' and ''Farmacia de guardia''. He is best known as the director of a 1972 surrealist short horror film titled ''La cabina'', wh ...

, and written by himself and

José Luis Garci José Luis García Muñoz (born 20 January 1944), known professionally as José Luis Garci, is a Spanish Film director, film director, Film, producer, critic, TV presenter, screenwriter and author. He earned worldwide acclaim and his country's fi ...

, starring

José Luis López Vázquez José Luis López Vázquez de la Torre MML (11 March 1922, in Madrid – 2 November 2009, in Madrid) was a Spanish actor. Career José Luis López Vázquez was born in Madrid, Spain, on 11 March 1922. He originally worked in theater as a costume ...

. It first aired on 13 December 1972 on

Televisión Española Televisión Española (acronym TVE, branded tve, "Spanish Television") is Spain's national state-owned public television broadcaster and the oldest regular television service in the country. It was also the first regular television service in ...

. In the 35-minute film, a man becomes trapped in a

telephone booth A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, telephone box or public call box is a tiny structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user's convenience; usually the user steps into the booth and closes the booth ...

, while passersby seem unable to help him. The film won the 1973

International Emmy Award The International Emmy Awards, or International Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based International Academy of Television Arts and Sci ...

for Fiction, the only Spanish programme to have won it. It was uploaded on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

in August 2019 by

RTVE The Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española, S.A. (; ), known as Radiotelevisión Española or RTVE, is the state-owned public corporation that assumed in 2007 the indirect management of the Spanish public radio and television service know ...

Archivo.

Plot

The film opens with workmen installing a phone booth in the middle of a square. Later, a man takes his son to the school bus. He enters the phone booth to make a call and the door slowly closes behind him. The man realizes that the phone does not work, so he tries to leave, only to discover that the door is stuck. He tries desperately to get it open, but nothing works. Eventually two business men come by and try to help him out, but to no avail. This gathers the attention of many passers-by who begin to congregate and watch the action. Several people (including a strong man, a repair man and a police officer) try to open the door but it remains stuck. Eventually a firefighter is just about to try to break open the glass roof of the phone booth when the phone booth company appears. They unbolt the booth and take it away on their truck, with the man still inside it. The crowd cheers and waves him away. The man watches frantically as he is carted across town. He tries to scream for help from people but everyone, apart from some dwarves, just smile and wave. There are allusions to his fate along the way, with a dwarf holding a ship in a bottle and a glass coffin containing a corpse being mourned. Eventually the truck stops next to another truck also carrying a man stuck in a phone booth. The two men try to communicate but cannot. After many hours the truck arrives at a massive underground warehouse. The phone booth is lifted up in the air by a giant magnet and the truck drives away. The phone booth is carried by a forklift through the warehouse, which is full of phone booths containing decaying remains of other trapped citizens. The man struggles in fear but cannot escape. The forklift drops him and leaves. The man looks to his right and sees the trapped man he saw on his way to the warehouse, who has strangled himself with the telephone cord. In other booths lie corpses in various states of decay. The man collapses out of frame in despair. The film ends with the phone booth company setting up a similar booth in the same park.

References

External links

*
Chaotic Cinema
- Summary and many still images
The film on YouTube
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cabina, La 1972 films 1970s Spanish-language films Spanish short films Spanish black comedy films Madrid in fiction Spain in fiction 1972 horror films RTVE shows Spanish science fiction horror films Spanish science fiction thriller films Spanish television films