Original subtitles

Good evening.

I trust I didn't frighten you unduly.

I customarily pop up much more quickly, but my spring is bent.

I also hope you will excuse this rather light -hearted opening for our show.

But tonight's story is somewhat different than usual.

I thought that my usual gallows humor, might not be suitable.

Our story takes place in Mexico.

It concerns death and burial and tells of an eerie battle between a grave

digger and a courageous woman. It follows in 60 seconds.

going to be a great prophet.

The best ever.

For the day of the dead.

Sit.

Rest. The prophet is nothing.

The saint is nothing if you are here.

I tripped.

I will go for the doctor.

Jorge, stay with your father.

Go to the house.

There is some medicine in a bottle.

The bottle is empty.

No, no, no. There is some left.

Go.

Quickly.

You have been

visitors to the kingdom of the dead.

Wasn't that everything that I told you it would be?

Terrible.

Thank you, I guess.

By the sound of the footsteps, is that not Juan Diaz?

I always guess right.

I can tell the sound of all my people.

We are not your people. You will be soon.

Well... Alejandro.

to pay rent on a grave?

This grave?

Perhaps the next one you dig.

Which will be tomorrow.

Tomorrow?

My graves are expensive to rent.

Three pesos for a month.

But if you want to rent for a year, I give you a real bargain. Thirty pesos

the whole year.

Fifty pesos for two years.

You see what a kind man I am, lowering my prices.

Of course, most people who cannot afford to buy a grave are right. That is why

most of them are wealthy, as you know. You are a rich man.

You are a Christian man.

And I know you will give me two full years of rent for... 40 pesos?

Alejandro, are you listening?

Yes, I'm listening. You have 40 pesos. Yes.

You have it with you? Yes.

Here.

Ah, bring it down.

Bring it down.

Bring it down.

Bury the catacombs?

Come in.

If you want to make a deal on your terms, it must be on my territory.

Come in, or go away.

Is that you?

Alejandro?

Me and my friends.

Have you met them?

Jose Morales. You remember Jose?

He couldn't keep the payments on his grave, so I brought him down here with

other mummies.

Carlotta Ruiz. She was before your time.

Has been here 40 years.

Hello, Carlotta!

Antonio Reyes.

You remember? He was killed by the bull.

His wife could not pay the rent on his grave, so here he is.

Josefina Cantina?

Chico Romero, Angelica Gomez, this friend is Juan

Villar.

Do you know what makes my mummies the only ones outside of Egypt that are so

fine?

It is the earth, the dry earth and the dry air.

here in this one city in all of Mexico.

Put a man in this earth for one year, and when you take him out, he's cured

a harvest of tobacco.

He will last forever.

He will last forever.

Listen.

Alejandro, the money.

Two years, you promised.

At that time, my wife will save enough money to pay for another two years for

grave above.

Why do you not want to spend the rest of your unworldly life down here with my

friends one day?

I do not like this place.

All right. Two years, I promise.

Are you afraid?

Afraid of my friends?

Only of you.

Only of you.

Huh?

What?

What on the earth?

Juan Diaz, is everything all right?

Maria? I'm here.

Did the doctor pass?

No, no. He has come and gone.

Gone?

Already?

So everything was quickly now.

Wait. Wait now.

The important things I have heard from you always.

What has our marriage been? But hunger and sickness are now nothing.

Nothing!

My good friend, my crops failed.

They growed.

I was a bad mechanic and I couldn't work in a factory.

You had not the strength. I couldn't make the sweetest carrot of candies.

The sweetest cars.

Sweet as they are.

And then I let a whole lot of sugar skulls fall.

And what did I succeed?

You have lit candles in the world.

And these.

And these.

Today not shine.

This house has no mirrors.

Yet has mirrors.

Do you not see yourself here?

Oh, yes.

I had two years afraid of my grave. Two years.

Don't let a grave digger cheat you.

Remember. I shall remember.

In the name of the saints.

Only in death I might be with you.

Only in death I might provide.

Bring food.

From beyond the grave.

These were the hat I wear for you.

These are only words.

Good words, Juan.

Now I... I shall take three beds, Maria.

Deep breaths.

You hear me?

You see this?

You have been dead one year. One?

One year and five days.

Was it a good year?

Huh?

Bad.

You do not know bad yet.

I will teach you.

This is your contract with me?

Done.

Now, we shall see each other face to face.

No.

First I go.

You wait for me, huh?

You say you will.

Excellent.

Maria Diaz?

Wife of Juan Diaz?

Yes, still the wife of Juan Diaz. You know me. Speak.

The year is up.

The year?

The year.

The year upon the grave.

What grave?

What grave?

One other grave is there in the whole world besides the grave of Juan Diaz.

May his soul continue to rest there, all being well, and the new rent money in

hand. Juan said on his deathbed, too, he paid you for two years' rent upon his

grave. One year.

Unless, of course, you have signed paper.

Paper?

What paper? No paper.

There was no time.

He was gone before such a paper could be signed.

One year, signora.

And I have already give you five days' grace.

You have the money now?

No, I don't.

Hey,

Maria, my sister.

Over here, little one. Come in, come in.

Ricardo. Che, come on, come on. Sit down.

What is the matter, huh?

Sit down.

What is the matter? What is wrong? You look like a... Ricardo, you must help

Tonight, he will take Juan out of the air.

Did the year pass so swiftly then?

Did the rent indeed come due on his grave?

Maria, open it.

Nothing. And nothing and still nothing.

So I cannot give you money.

What else can a brother do?

But you are more than a brother.

You are the chief of the police.

Maria, the law stops at the edge of the grave.

You will give me a few weeks, a few days even.

Time, Ricardo.

Time to find money.

Time.

I will walk to the mouth of the catacomb.

I will spit in it.

But our Maria do not expect to spit ever to hit bottom.

We will hear no echo.

The catacomb is very deep.

Who am I to lose myself under the earth?

By what authority do I have to question the dead or the keeper of the dead?

Let me close my nakedness.

Thus.

Is

that

Ricardo, the chief of all our police?

And Maria Diaz?

And her son?

It is not often that I have such an audience.

Stop digging.

There is a funeral tomorrow, and the grave must be open and empty already.

No one has died.

Someone always dies.

The graveyard is small. There is not much room.

All tenants must be evicted.

I am a kind landlord, but... Be still more kind.

Chief of police.

There are two countries, eh? Your country and my country.

The land of the living and this land here of the dead.

Of the two, the land beyond the gate is filled with quarrels and orders. It is

not for me.

I prefer my own population of the quiet and the silent ones.

The uncomplaining and the unquarelsome ones.

who order no orders and criticize no criticisms.

Just as you do not like me to conduct funerals in your municipal office, I do

not welcome judges and juries and the rattling of the law in this place where,

after all, who can hear?

Please hear, God help them.

Now you hear me.

Inside of this woman and this boy, how can you desecrate the man's final bed?

Oh, no, no.

He was but a traveler in death's kingdom who paused to rest a while here in this

little room.

But there are many travelers beating upon the door.

They, too, in need of such rooms.

Their fists clenched with money. Am I to turn away the weary travelers because

this one forgetfully writes his contract in the dust?

Old man, why do you call me old? Do you hope that I will die before you?

I will outlive you, chief of police, and what then?

Then? Then, on that day, someday or soon, when they bring your body here

to me.

What when I have to bury you? What when you fall in my hands, my

law, on my land?

You dog, you threaten me.

No, no.

I only say that the graveyard is small and the cutter comes deep and the

gears... I long after you die, Chief of Police, you may stay here with me

for a long while.

What would you do?

Hide me in a far part of the catacomb?

Sit me, a mummy, at a table? Drink with me? Hang me by my hair?

Throw my bones to the dogs?

Get ink for writing out of my skull?

I do not say that.

You say that.

And while you say, I think.

Good night, Ricardo.

Good night, Maria.

Good night, boy.

Not good night.

The night is bad.

This is horny.

I've got you, Deesh.

I will not let them do this to you, father. I will do something.

I will be back.

I promise.

Oh, I promise.

circumstances beyond our control.

We must interrupt to bring you the following station break.

We shall continue in a few moments.

Please bear with us.

Who's there?

Who's there?

Who dares to enter my dance?

Who dares?

Are you there?

Are you there?

Of course you are there.

You have always been there.

You will be there forever.

Oh, this is the best part of my day and life.

Oh, to speak and have no one shout back.

Oh, the silence, and the silence, and the silence.

I touch it, so I'm done.

I'm done.

Lombardo, good evening.

Serafina.

Pablo.

Greetings.

Greetings, my friend.

Would you like to speak?

Yes.

What would you like to tell me?

If you could speak...

What would you tell me?

Would you tell me how much you love me?

Yes, love me.

Alejandro, the keeper of dry souls.

Because if you don't love me, well, you are no burden.

Death has rendered you down to mere wheat chaff, the husk of dry, dead corn.

I could lift any one of you with my fingers thus.

Any one of you who gives me trouble, I could toss like clay into the wind.

You would blow away like dust.

Do you protest, Wandias? Do you call out against me?

Do you, from your cold eyes, hate me?

Well, I challenge you, Wandias.

I dare you.

She's the gravedigger.

Cut her and choke him. Kill him to death.

There you go, Alejandro.

Time for bed.

Too much drink.

Slowly now.

Don't run.

We care.

This foot, and then that.

And this foot, and then that.

And this foot, and then that. And this foot,

and then that.

We cannot escape.

He will be waiting up there. Watch.

Maria, forgive the hour. Forgive nothing. Let us in. Let us in. Yes.

The law of the living first. Then the law of the dead.

Shh. The children sleep.

I cannot sleep.

You have stolen from me. Arrest her.

There.

Maria. We have no mummy here.

We did not say a mummy was missing.

We said nothing.

How could you know that we would say a body was gone unless you stole it

yourself, you see?

What else could one steal from the land of the dead?

True. She makes a fine point.

Still, my dear sister, I feel I must ask.

What is that which leans against the far wall?

That? Yes, that.

That!

Oh, to celebrate the festival of the day of our dear dead one.

I have taken paper and flour and clay and made of it a life -size toy, which

looks like the mom is from the catacomb.

Have you indeed done this, Maria? No, no, I tell you. With your permission,

Maria. You need a light. Be better.

Ah.

So?

So? With this papier -mâché, mommy, this toy, I plan... Plan?

What plan?

It is a plan whereby this toy will provide money to Edward.

Would you deny my children this?

I would deny your children nothing that is rightfully theirs.

A toy?

A death toy?

Surely the largest tattoo I've ever seen.

I stand in awe of your talent, Maria.

A talent for thievery.

This is no toy!

Do you swear, Maria, that this is papier -mâché?

By diversion, I swear.

By diversion?

Well, then, what more need be said?

Mine! Mine! My property!

The toy, if it is a toy and made by me, must surely belong to me.

And even, even if it is not a toy, and it's indeed Juan Díaz who has come home,

why then does not Juan Díaz belong first to God?

How can one argue that?

I argue. And after God, in God's eyes, and at God's altar, and in God's

church, on one of God's holiest afternoons, Did not Juan Díaz say that

be mine through his days?

Ah, there you are. Throughout his days.

His days are over.

Now he is mine.

So, let me leave.

God's property first.

Then, María Díaz's property.

That is, if this toy is not a toy, and it's Juan Díaz.

But, anyway, landlord of the dead, you evicted your tenant.

You so much as said you did not want him. But if you love him so dearly and

his return, will you pay the rent now due and tenant him again?

I pay... the law.

The law. The law.

Gravekeeper, I see many long months and many fine points of law.

Many lawyers and judges...

Many issues to argue now. This way and that.

Which include real estate, toy manufacturers, Maria, God, Juan Diaz,

he is.

Hungry children.

The conscience of the keeper of graves.

And so much complication that this business will suffer.

Are you prepared for long years of litigation in court?

I am prepared, my good man.

The other night, you gave me some small advice, which now I return to you.

I do not direct the traffic of the dead.

Now, you must not patrol the traffic of my living.

Your jurisdiction ends at the Tumiar Gate.

So, I pronounce this officially.

Faith and thought, not a mummy.

Come along, cold one.

Back to your proper country, eh?

Maria, good night.

Children of Maria, good night. Sleep.

You go.

I go.

But what about him?

Well, Juan Diaz goes nowhere.

He will be here if still you wish to sue in court, eh?

You see him running, dancing, escaping?

You do not.

Maria.

Come on.

Come along, cold one.

Juan Díaz, do you see?

Do you know?

Do you truly understand?

We are in the town, on the way to the graveyard.

It's easier to find many tourists coming this way.

They... When you said, if only in death, you might be

with us.

You said, if only in death you might bring food,

if but one of your hands might work for us.

So, Juan, Juan,

do you forgive me for bringing you here?

Do you forgive me?

Do you forgive me?

This commercial must be seen from the beginning.

Therefore, no one will be seated after it starts.