Last Supper, The (1976)

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Being both a conscientious slave owner and a pious Christian, Don Manuel (Nelson Villagra) quite naturally wants to share the blessings of Christ with the slaves who work on his sugar plantation. When he drops in for a visit during Holy Week, he has a surprise planned for everyone. It turns out to be a surprise for him as well.

Don Manuel selects twelve of his lucky slaves to serve as apostles in his re-enactment of the Last Supper in which he, quite naturally, plays the role of Christ. They don´t quite understand what they´re getting into, but everyone has a good laugh when the master washes and kisses the feet of his slaves.

Tomás Guttiérez Alea directs with the eye of a social realist combined with the blasphemous sensibility of Luis Buñuel. Buñuel´s "Viridiana" features a riotous scene in which a group of debauched beggars "pose" for a picture that directly imitates Da Vinci´s "The Last Supper." Alea´s "The Last Supper" expands this moment into an entire second act. The titular meal takes up the entire second act of the film, and nearly an hour of screen time. It´s an audacious undertaking by one of Cuba´s greatest directors, and the gamble pays off handsomely.

The meal begins innocently enough, at least if you think the idea of a master "getting to know his slaves" is innocent. Don Manuel is a clueless blowhard who envisions himself as a liberal thinker and a man of the people. He gets chummy with his selected "apostles," assuring them that he is no different than they are. In fact, he´s jealous of them. Slaves are so lucky to serve their masters; if they do so with joy in their heart, they are guaranteed a place in heaven. "When the overseer beats me, I must be happy!" says one of the slaves, producing guffaws from the peanut gallery.

At first, the awkward situation plays as pure absurdist fare. The drunker the master gets, the more outlandish his religious rantings become and the slaves all have a good laugh. But once Don Manuel becomes properly pickled, the real tension in the scene bubbles to the surface. Having been seated at the same table as Don Manuel, the slaves begin to wonder exactly if the master might have been right after all: maybe he is no different than they are. Manuel´s drunken generosity also boomerangs on him. He magnanimously sets an elderly slave free, but once the man realizes he has nowhere to go, the master takes the opportunity to remind him once again of that freedom is not happiness. Nobody buys it, and when another of Don Manuel´s promises fails to materialize the next day, the slaves rebel.

Alea is probably best known for his extraordinary 1968 film "Memories of Underdevelopment" which provided a jaundiced intellectual´s view of the Cuban Revolution. Both a political film and a deeply personal film about modern alienation, it is a masterpiece by any measure. "The Last Supper" (1976) doesn´t match up to that lofty standard, but it´s still a sharp and potent satire. The story is based loosely on a real event from 18th-century Cuba, which exists only as a single paragraph in a history book.

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