Aftermath 1994

In a stark, unsettling sequence, Marta Arnau Marti dies in a car crash after she accidentally runs over a dog. An orderly wheels Marta’s body into a cold morgue drawer, passing a mourning couple while a nurse offers them a crucifix necklace. The orderly’s curiosity is piqued when he overhears two morticians performing autopsies on two male bodies. He lingers to catch a glimpse, then slips away when one mortician fixes him with a hard, unsettling glare.

Inside the morgue, the two morticians finish their work on the dead men, and as one of them leaves, the other remains and brings Marta’s body to the autopsy table. The scene quickly turns morbid and methodical as the mortician, Pep Tosar, moves Marta into a private space, undresses her, and begins a chilling, meticulous dissection. He removes the brain and uses a knife to touch and manipulate the body, tracing lines across her torso and, disturbingly, her intimate areas. The act grows increasingly explicit as he fondles her breasts and internals, pausing to take photographs of his disturbing handiwork. Unable to curb his urges, he proceeds to necrophilia, while his camera continues to record the grim tableau on its automatic setting.

After the horrific violation, the mortician continues with the autopsy, cleans the space, and then leaves the morgue. At home, the pajama-clad killer blends Marta’s heart into a pulpy substance, feeds a portion to his dog, and settles into his living room. The unsettling rhythm of domesticity returns as a baby’s cries echo from the television, and scraps of newspaper—upon which the dog gnaws—reveal Marta’s obituary, tying the living world back to the dead in a haunting loop. Among the bodies examined in the morgue that night is Cadáver Vin, portrayed by Xevi Collellmir, a reminder of the quiet, invisible presence of those who did not survive the crash.