There is a common metaphor in thousands of songs, self-help books and poetry, the one that says that someone ‘dances with death’. What does that mean? What exactly does it mean that someone dances with death? In the end, after using it so much, the expression has become the typical empty signifier, something that is almost said as a tagline. When a person has an illness we load ourselves with clichés and commonplaces like that. We say that someone who has cancer “fights”, “wage a battle” or “dances with death”.
It is curious that cinema is this year tearing down that argument based on warlike and euphemistic language. He has done it Pilar Palomero in The flashes; Pedro Almodóvar in The next room, with that Tilda Swinton monologue that dismantles the entire discourse around death; and now it is done by the Catalan filmmaker Carlos Marqués-Marcet, who once again demonstrates that he is one of the great directors of recent Spanish cinema with his most daring work to date, Dust They will be.
The filmmaker, who surprised with his x-ray of the impossibility of long-distance relationships in 10,000 kilometers, and counted motherhood like few others in The days to cometakes the happy metaphor of dancing with death and turns it into reality. He makes her flesh and places Ángela Molina to star in a musical about euthanasia and to have a literal dance with the lady of the scythe. Just the idea is a triple somersault with a corkscrew, but Marqués-Marcet demonstrates a talent for landing on his feet whatever decision he makes.
Death is a topic that is difficult enough to address in a musical, but the director, in the script with Clara Roquet and Coral Cruz, brings together some of the best to create something personal, moving to the point of tears, surprising and, above all, unique. How difficult to say that in an increasingly hackneyed cinema. How nice that one can still be surprised in a seat when watching a Spanish musical with original songs and choreography. Surrounding yourself with the best is once again literal, because the songs were composed by María Arnal and the incredible choreographic numbers are by La Veronal. An artistic conjunction that reaches moments of imposing beauty.
Dust They Will shows its cards from the beginning, with a scene in which Ángela Molina’s character has a crisis and screams inconsolably around her house. When the ambulance arrives everything turns into a strange dance. She throws the things, but they hold them and place them with the delicacy of a dance that the nurses have with the patient.
There are not excessive musical numbers, but those that do exist are brilliant, with special mention to Ángela Molina in an Esther Williams-style show with an imagery of death and skeletons. One of the scenes to remember this year in Spanish cinema without a doubt. As is that ending that to the rhythm of Latin music shows the end of its two protagonists. There is a very brave political decision in They will be dust, And it is not only the patient who decides to die, but also her partner, who wants to say goodbye with her.
It is therefore a film that also explores how children make this very complex decision, and all with delicacy and moments of beautiful sensitivity, such as Alfredo Castro’s tango with his son. Castro and Ángela Molina are brilliant as the main couple. But also pay attention to Mònica Almirall’s surprise. All meshing into one of the best Spanish films of the year that should be in all awards conversations this year.
A real inspiration
For Carlos Marqués-Marcet, dancing with death makes sense, since there is “an entire musical tradition” around death. Perhaps that is why this film, which did not start out as one, ended up becoming the most peculiar and original of them. The starting point was born from some real friends of the filmmaker who wanted to make the same decision that the characters born from them now make.
The director was very interested and started a creation workshop with them and his daughter. From those experiences was born a “literary document that was like 90 pages of different texts, also research.” “There the music begins to appear, already in the workshops. All the time, whenever there was a moment, they would start dancing together or playing music. When moments come where words no longer reach, which is what happens when you address death, music often comes out. You see it in a lot of documentaries about assisted dying too, where a lot of people need music before they die. Or they end up tasting a song with their companion,” says Marqués-Marcet.
He never saw a documentary about all that, but originally the idea was a much more meta film where “the royal family came out, you saw them acting.” For health reasons it couldn’t be, but there are many things that do refer to reality, like the final Swiss clinic, where even one of the nurses is a real nurse. Winks that allude to real life in a film that uses representation, trompe l’oeil and a genre like the musical, which requires the viewer to have the greatest possible amount of faith.
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