Ángela Molina and Alfredo Castro have an unexpected leap in their step as a couple who decide to end their lives in the formally daring drama from the director of "10,000KM."
FARTING WITH EYE CONTACT (Part 3!)
Carlos Marqués-Marcet breathes life into a serious situation in “They Will Be Dust,” realizing that when so many people are tiptoeing around the subject of death, maybe it’s not such a big leap to put an elderly couple in ballet shoes when they figure it’s time to choose to shed their mortal coils. The unconventional drama proves moving in more ways than one, following the septuagenarian couple on a one-way ticket to Switzerland, achieving a level of intimacy unusual even for the reliably sensitive director when music and dance can break open what dialogue alone cannot.
Marqués-Marcet’s approach to his fourth feature may be unexpected, but the subject seems inevitable given that the director has considered different stages of life in his previous three films. After his impressive debut, “10,000KM,” which centered on a couple too young to see the problems a long-distance relationship could bring, it’s poignant to see how Marqués-Marcet observes a different kind of distance here. Claudia (Ángela Molina) suffers from a degenerative disease that has distanced her from her husband Flavio (Alfredo Castro), even as they share the same bed, no longer on the same wavelength as in previous decades.
Co-written by their frequent collaborators Clara Roquet and Coral Cruz, “They Will Be Dust” opens with a bravura single take in which a call for paramedics to treat a manic episode at Claudia and Flavio’s home becomes a tango between the woman and the paramedics. As breathtaking as the camerawork and choreography of this scene are, what’s perhaps most striking is that Flavio—and their live-in daughter, Violeta (Monica Amirall)—are unable to match their footwork. That discrepancy sets up not only the more fantastical elements that occasionally crop up in the drama, but also the idea that partners are often out of step with their loved ones when the choice to die with dignity can be honored without being fully accepted.
