They Will Be Dust

Winner of the prestigious Platform award at TIFF 24, this is a striking, ambitious and impressive movie from Carlos Marques-Mercet (10,000 KM) with stellar performances from two old pros: Angela Molina, whose career dates all the way back to Bunuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire (she played the title role, or half of it), and Chile’s Alfredo Castro (No, Tony Manero, Rojo, and many others).

When stage veteran Claudia (Molina) decides she doesn’t want to passively wait for her terminal illness to take away all of her agency, her longtime partner and director Flavio (Castro) hatches a plan for them to end their lives together in Switzerland. They call the family together to break the news…

If assisted death is a challenging subject, Marques-Marcet has defied expectations to fashion an audaciously entertaining movie, with stylized musical set pieces and comedy to off-set the raw emotionalism of other scenes. As for Molina, she may never have given a better performance.

A brave, almost foolish, volcanic, pretentious, vociferous, passionate work, which, despite everything, deserves a leisurely watch.

El Pais