Please, Don't Bury Me Alive! Is a 1976 film directed by and starring Efraín Gutiérrez.
It is set in the Chicano community of San Antonio, Texas in 1972. Gutiérrez plays Alejandro Hernandez, a young man who, as the film opens, is attending the funeral of his brother Ricardo, killed in the Vietnam War. Alejandro seethes with resentment at institutional racism in the United States and how the white man oppresses Chicanos. His brother's death in the war is only one way that Chicanos are victimized, as they are drafted into the Army out of proportion to their numbers while white kids avoid military service.
Alejandro's parents would like to see him aim for a responsible job like teaching, and his gorgeous girlfriends wants to get married and settle down. Unfortunately Alejandro has drifted into a life of petty theft. He justifies this as stealing from the white man, who has already stolen everything from the brown people of the Americas. But when a white guy offers Alejandro $20,000 to obtain a half-kilo of heroin, Alejandro hesitates.
Tropes:
- Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: Well, not kill. But when one of Alejandro's buddies suggests robbing an old Chicana lady who keeps a lot of cash hidden in a pot in her home, Alejandro refuses, saying that they rob white folks but never their own. So it's a step towards the
Moral Event Horizon later when Alejandro changes his mind, and he and his friends do steal the old lady's cash. - Blaming "The Man": Alejandro is quite clear about this, saying that "it's the man, es el gringo" that pushes Chicanos down and oppresses them.
- Call-Back: The judge who sentences Alejandro to a 10-year prison term at the end is played by the same actor who played the officer presiding over Roberto's funeral in the beginning. It's unclear whether the two white authority figures are literally the same man (is the judge an Army reservist?) or if it's symbolic.
- Downer Beginning: The first scene is the funeral of Alejandro's brother Roberto, killed in Vietnam.
- Downer Ending: Alejandro is sentences to ten years in prison for trafficking in heroin. And just to make things sadder, his father has a heart attack and dies while waiting outside the courtroom.
- Eagleland: Very much a flavor 2, as Alejandro talks about how white Americans send Chicanos off to fight their wars, and how the whites came in and conquered Aztlan (the possibly mythical
Aztec homeland) and stole everything from his people. This is later softened a bit in an Inner Monologue where Alejandro talks about how he should be able to be an American and a Chicano, in his own way. - Flashback: Alejandro's memories of his brother Roberto. One scene shows the brothers playing in a field where their parents were picking vegetables. Another shows Roberto, the day before he went off to the Army, playing "Your Cheatin' Heart" by Hank Williams, with some Spanish lyrics mixed in.
- Freeze-Frame Ending: Ends with a freeze-frame onto Alejandro's tear-streaked face, as he's taken out of the courtroom, headed to jail.
- Greek Chorus: The Chicano songs that play on the soundtrack are often directly commenting on the action onscreen. As Alejandro's parents are denied permission to visit him in jail, a singer sings (in Spanish) "I don't have a lawyer, they won't let me in." While Alejandro's father waits, despairing, outside the courtroom, the song playing recounts how the singer had two sons, one killed in war and the other sent to prison.
- Groin Attack: Alejandro is dancing with a white woman at a party when he's confronted with a racist white man. After quickly observing that the racist has far too many buddies behind him for Alejandro and his friends to fight, Alejandro then kicks the racist in the nuts before running for it.
- Healthcare Motivation: The reason why Alejandro goes against his better instincts and agrees to obtain heroin for the white guy. His father has a serious health condition and the family can't afford a doctor.
- Hypocrite: Alejandro sneers that many of the Chicano politicians who pose as leaders of their community marry white women. But he's certainly eager enough to dance with a white lady named Cindy at a party, and later he has sex with another white woman he met at another party.
- No Name Given: Neither Alejandro's parents nor his girlfriend are ever named.
- The Stinger: A barely noticeable line at the end of the credits indicates that Alejandro will be eligible for parole in May 1976, which was around the time this film was released.
- Title Drop: Sort of. The song that plays at the end, as Alejandro is convicted of drug trafficking and sent to jail, has a lyric that says "they're going to have me there, buried alive."