The Coffee Table

A Spanish black comedy set in a flat. Jesús and María have just had a baby. Both are exhausted, both are tense, and they agree on nothing. They go to a furniture shop. Jesús says he has not made a single decision himself in years and picks out a coffee table. The table is hideous. It is held up by gilded nude female figures, the top is glass, and the salesman says the glass is unbreakable. María does not want it. Jesús insists and the table is bought. It is set up at home. Then María goes out. Jesús is left alone with the baby and an accident happens. From there the film runs in one flat, close to real time. The door rings, guests arrive, and the man says nothing. What the narrative is interested in is not the accident but postponement: all its tension comes from a man not saying the sentence he has to say. The event is never shown. The narrative leaves the critical moment outside the frame and spends the rest of its running time playing on the audience knowing while nobody else does. The comedy is uncomfortable. The jokes ride on top of the dread, and laughter and horror stand in the same scene. The supporting characters raise the pressure. The girl from upstairs, the visiting brother and his partner keep the narrative permanently at the edge of exploding. David Pareja, Estefanía de los Santos, Josep Maria Riera and Claudia Riera are in the cast. Caye Casas directed and co-wrote. Who it is for: anyone who likes black comedy that pushes at the limit and single-location tension. Who it is not for: nearly everyone; the subject is what happens to a baby and the film does not soften it.