We Will Never Die

We Will Never Die is set in rural Argentina and follows the reconstruction of the life and death of a young man from the point of view of his mother and younger brother. With this premise, both will continue pushing forward, in search of the truth and a transcendental question: what space do those who die leave for those who stay alive?

To explain this premise, the director, Eduardo Crespo, relies on the development of the film’s two main characters: a mother who suffers difficulties from understanding what happened and her youngest son who experiences a coming of age through mourning his brother. A casting far from the norm and performances of great charisma and subtlety are the strongest points of the film. The mother, played by Romina Escobar, who we saw in the formidable 2019 Teddy winner, A Brief History of the Green Planet, and the youngest son, by Rodrigo Santana, act excellently by using restraint and simplicity. In their performances resides a face of extreme vulnerability and nakedness that reminds us of what Joan Didion wrote in The Year of Magical Thinking: “It is the look of someone who wears glasses and is suddenly made to take them off…these people who have lost someone look naked because they think themselves invisible”.  Both actors are full of elegance and use almost invisible gestures that build a story of great depth.

It is worth mentioning that the cinematography greatly supports the emotions of the characters with still and landscape shots. It is a calm, pictorial and terrestrial approach that together with the script, completes a mysterious, sad and beautiful work, always far from sentimentality.

Crespo touches us with his film and does so through his graceful acting direction and the sensitivity of the scenes charged with poetic symbolism. He makes more a set of postcards than a chronological story; the film is built to move rather than explain. We Will Never Die is a farewell song that embraces you and consoles you. Therapy for the soul.

Daniel Sanchez Lopez