When a well-loved artist is accidentally killed by the machine he created to mass-produce busts of the nineteenth-century revolutionary hero, Josi Martm, his family decides he should be buried gripping his union work permit in a symbol of his dedication to Castro`s cause. Unfortunately, when his wife (Sylvia Planas) goes to receive her pension, the paperwork cannot be completed without her husband`s work permit. Distraught, she enlists her nephew (Salvador Wood) to exhume the body. He follows a maddening paper trail that ends in a hilarious climax about the insanity of bureaucracy. In this early film, Alea creates a sly look at communist Cuba, a frequent subject in his oevre. Simultaneously lively and sharp, DEATH OF A BUREAUCRAT employs the techniques of early cinematic masters like Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin, speeding up the film for comedic effect or building a simple nuisance into a calamitous whimsicality. Uncle`s cumbersome machine burps and groans noisily in a mischievous animation sequence that may have influenced the loopy cut-outs of the Monty Python movies. Infinitely entertaining, The New York Times film critic Vincent Canby observed, There are times when a lost rubber stamp is mightier than the sword.