Cuba may be suffocating in the grip of a strait-laced and bumbling Communist bureaucracy, but the warm-blooded spirit of its people can't be chilled by economic hardship and silly rules and regulations. That's the cheerful message of ''Guantanamera,'' a good-naturedly shambling romantic comedy with an acidic political undertow.

The final collaboration by Tomas Gutierrez Alea, the Cuban director who died in 1996, and Juan Carlos Tabio, with whom he worked on ''Strawberry and Chocolate,'' ''Guantanamera'' is really two films in one. On the lighter side, it begins with the story of Yoyita, a famous Cuban singer who returns from Havana to her hometown of Guantanamera after 50 years and rushes to the home of her long-lost sweetheart, Candido (Raul Eguren), whom she intuits still carries a torch. Their reunion is so ecstatic that Yoyita, happy at last, promptly dies in his arms. The rest of the film follows the tortuous, comic journey of her coffin back to Havana, accompanied by Candido and a family entourage

The cross-country transport of that coffin becomes a caravan of colliding characters, representing a cross-section of everyday Cubans who meet on the road and get caught up in amusing misadventures. The travelers include Yoyita's beautiful niece, Georgina (Mirtha Ibarra), who is unhappily married to Adolfo (Carlos Cruz), an undertaker and Communist bureaucrat of stupefying rectitude who is charge of the cortege.

The movie's comic villain, symbol of the absurdities of Cuban Communism, and the emblem of its darker satirical side, Adolfo has conceived an elaborate gasoline-saving scheme by which coffins transported across the country will be relayed from town to town in a series of cars. But how this plan would actually save money is never explained. In the case of Yoyita's coffin, it becomes a recipe for all sorts of mix-ups and confusion.

Along the way, the funeral party becomes involved with another group of travelers heading in the same direction, led by Mariano (Jorge Perugorria), a farmer who was once a student of Georgina's and had a big crush on her. An inveterate womanizer with a different lover waiting at every service depot, Mariano begins ardently pursuing his former teacher right under her husband's nose.

Now and then, a symbolic angel of death named Iku (Suset Perez Malberti) shows up, often appearing in Candido's hallucinations.

''Guantanamera'' has the structure of a folk song, with its episodes strung together by fragments of the Pete Seeger-Hector Angulo folk hit from which the movie takes its title. For the movie, the song has been refitted with new lyrics that advance the story.

What keeps its characters' spirits lifted is their mixture of uninhibited sensuality (Mariano may be a rat with women but his lovers turn out to be just as duplicitous and free-spirited as he) and their jovial indifference to the rules. The people barter their way along the road, picking up goods to sell on the black market as they go along, and having a good time doing it. The political message may not be new, but it's engagingly stated: as much as dogma tries to ''improve'' human nature, there is just no changing it.

GUANTANAMERA

Directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabio; written (in Spanish, with English subtitles) by Eliseo Alberto Diego, Mr. Alea and Mr. Tabio; director of photography, Hans Burmann; edited by Carmen Frias; music by Jose Nieto; production designer, Frank Cabrera; produced by Gerardo Herrer; released by Cinepix Film Properties. Running time: 101 minutes. This film is not rated.