A couple dances with death in the Spry musical

Carlos Marqués-Marcet brings a serious situation to life in They Will Be Dust, realising that given how many others tiptoe around the subject of death, perhaps it's not so far-fetched to put an elderly couple in ballet slippers when they think it's time to make their own decision to shed their mortal coils. The offbeat drama proves moving in more ways than one as it follows the 70-year-old couple booked on a one-way trip to Switzerland, achieving a level of intimacy unusual even for its always sensitive director, when music and dance can open up what mere dialogue cannot.

Marqués-Marcet's approach to his fourth film may be surprising, but the subject matter seems inevitable, considering the director's previous three films have explored different stages of life. After his impressive debut, 10,000km, was about a couple too young to recognize the problems that a long-distance relationship can bring, it's poignant to see Marqués-Marcet perceive 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 if they sleep in the same bed and are no longer on the same wavelength as they were in previous decades.

Co-written with longtime collaborators Clara Roquet and Coral Cruz, “They Will Be Dust” opens with a bravura single take in which a call to paramedics to treat a manic episode at Claudia and Flavio’s home turns into a tango between the woman and the paramedics. As stunning as the camerawork and choreography of this scene is, what is perhaps striking is that Flavio—like her live-in daughter Violeta (Monica Amirall)—is unable to keep up with her footwork. This discrepancy not only leads to the more fantastical elements that occasionally intrude on the drama, but also to the idea that partners are often out of tune with their loved ones when the decision to die with dignity can be respected but not fully accepted.

Naturally, reactions vary throughout the family. Everyone is less than pleased to learn of Claudia and Flavio's plans, having thought they were brought together to witness the couple's vow renewal. Meanwhile, Violeta can easily be resentful toward her siblings Manuel (Alvan Prado) and Lea (Patricia Bargello), who have had time to start their lives while she devotes herself to caring for Claudia. They can all be angry at Flavio, who is healthier than his wife but still decides he can't go on without her—a sign of devotion that not even Claudia appreciates. It's a compassionate gesture that when the characters feel they can't confide in each other, the filmmakers allow them to belt out their feelings and dance, knowing that at least one captive audience will hear them.

To really make the film ring, the film could do with a few extra musical numbers, when Marqués-Marcet's judicious use of them creates expectations of a certain rhythm that the film never quite captures. But the musical numbers have a depth of feeling that is uncommon on screen, with wonderful modern choreography by Marcos Morau and Le Veonal that plunges Claudia into her death throes while surrounded by dancers whose unnatural movements she slowly mimics.

Composer Maria Arnal also rises to the occasion, composing a score that mixes the earthly and the heavenly. She provides a scene in a garden with an orchestra made up partly of leaf blowers and garden shears. This is one of many unorthodox ways in which They Will Be Dust evokes emotion, but the emotions evoked can be surprising in themselves when the film has such a refreshing attitude to death: ambivalent about the afterlife, but certainly not terrified of it. The only sadness that The End exudes here is that the film itself is over.