The Life Work of Juan Diaz

Overview

Juan Diaz is dying and penniless. His last wish is that he can provide financial security for his family. About a year later, a gravedigger named Alejandro exhumes Juan's corpse to make room in the cemetery. He has it mummified and sotries it in a crypt with a number of other mummies. Juan wife, Maria, discovers Alejandro plan and steals Juan's body. She hangs it in the house and tells tourists that it is a authentic Mexican mummy. Money from the tourists pays for food and clothing for Maria and her three children. Eventually, however, Maria is overcome by the ghoulishness of what she has done. She begs for forgiveness, but a gleam in the eye of the corpses body reveals that Juan approves of what she has done.