Review They'll Turn to Dust : Carlos Marquez-Marset orchestrates a tender dance with death in a live musical

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This is going to be interesting:

Angela Molina and Alfredo Castro take an unexpectedly drastic turn in their destiny, becoming a couple determined to commit suicide, in this gritty drama from the director of 10000 km .

Carlos Marquez-Marset brings a serious situation to life in They Turn to Dust , realizing that with so many people tiptoeing around the subject of death, it might not be so hard to put an elderly couple in ballet shoes if they think it’s time to choose to leave their mortal world. The unconventional drama proves touching in many ways as it follows a seventy-year-old couple who book a one-way trip to Switzerland, reaching a level of intimacy unusual even for its reliably sensitive director when music and dance can reveal what mere dialog cannot.

Marquez-Marset’s approach to his fourth film may be unexpected, but the subject matter seems inevitable when the director has spent his previous three films looking at different stages of life. After his impressive debut 10,000 Kilometers, the couple was too young to see the problems that can arise in a long-distance relationship, it becomes touching to see Marquez-Marset observe a different kind of distance here. Claudia (Angela Molina) suffers from a degenerative disease that has put her at a distance from her husband Flavio (Alfredo Castro), even when they share the same bed, no longer on the same page as in previous decades.

Co-written with longtime collaborator Clara Rocket and Coral Cruz, They Turn Into Dust opens with a bravura single in which a call for paramedics to treat a manic episode in Claudia and Flavio’s home turns into a tango between a woman and the paramedics. As breathtaking as the camerawork and choreography of this scene are, the attention may be drawn to the fact that Flavio – and their daughter Violeta (Monica Amirall), who lives with them – are unable to match their movements. This disconnect creates not only the more fantastical elements that occasionally intrude into the drama, but also the notion that partners often don’t keep up with their loved ones, when the choice to die with dignity can be honored without being fully embraced.

Naturally, the family’s reactions are varied, and its members can’t be happy to learn of Claudia and Flavio’s plans when they were under the impression that they were brought together to witness the renewal of their vows. Meanwhile, Violeta may be slightly resentful of her siblings Manuel (Alvan Prado) and Lea (Patricia Bargello), who have had time to start their lives while she has devoted her entire life to caring for Claudia. They can all be angry at Flavio, who is healthier than his wife but nonetheless decides he can’t live without her, a sign of devotion that even Claudia can’t appreciate. It’s a compassionate gesture, when the characters feel they can’t trust each other, the filmmakers allow them to express their feelings loudly and dance, knowing that at least one captive audience will hear them.

For the movie to really sing, the film should have added a couple more musical numbers, when the judicious use of Marquez-Marse creates an expectation of a certain rhythm that the movie never quite gets into. Nevertheless, the musical pauses have a depth of feeling that is atypical of the screen, with marvelous contemporary choreography by Marcos Morau and Le Véonal that throws Claudia into spasms of death as she is surrounded by dancers whose unnatural movements she copies with ease.

Composer Maria Arnal is also on point with a score that mixes the mundane and ethereal, introducing a garden scene with an orchestra composed in part of blowers and pruning shears. It’s one of the many unorthodox ways They Will Turn to Dust finds to access emotion, but the emotions evoked can be surprising in and of themselves when the movie has such a refreshing relationship to care: ambivalent about the afterlife, but certainly not fear of it. The only sadness that comes from The End here is that the movie itself is over.