Flavio and Claudia have been a couple for more than 30 years. They are united by a "deep love" since "he went into exile escaping the bloody Chilean dictatorship, where he was mistreated and tortured." Once in Spain, "he met her, a wonderful dancer, they got together with each other's children and had a girl in common," explains Alfredo Castro, the Chilean actor who plays Flavio in Polvo sera, the new film by Carlos Marqués-Marcet, which is filming these days in Barcelona.
But that incombustible love is coming to an end. Claudia is sick. "She becomes increasingly disabled, with paralysis and blindness. She does not want to lose her autonomy or her dignity and refuses to be a burden on her family now that her decline is leading her to become a defenseless animal. That is why she decides to resort to assisted death," adds Ángela Molina, who plays Claudia.
Flavio is determined to continue with his beloved until the end and "accompany her" even in death. So the couple enrolls in The Blue House, a place in Switzerland where they help people die, even if they are not terminally ill as is the case with Flavio. Marqués-Marcet wrote together with Clara Roquet and Coral Cruz, the script for Polvo will be after an exhaustive study of how this place works, located on the outskirts of Zurich and where the filming of the film will conclude.
"There are several documentaries, all very moving, about The Blue House, where you see, for example, people who are going to die with great determination, such as a woman who comes happily on her birthday, carries a bouquet of flowers, puts on makeup and takes the medication. But there are also those who regret it and realize at the last second that they don't want to do it and go back," says Castro, whose role is very complex because neither Flavio's children nor those around him understand his decision to die for love
The film "is not intended to be an apology for suicide," says Marqués-Marcet, but rather to put on the table "an important debate such as deciding about your own death," he adds and reflects: "I think I wouldn't do it even if I were very sick, who would resist until the last day, but it is really a question of freedom.
Marquis-Marcet has already visited The Blue House - although that is not the real name of this place - where assisted suicide is attempted by a Swiss law from 1942, because "in Switzerland euthanasia is not legal, but it is allowed to help someone to die." The blue house is "a strange place, which has something beautiful, because there is a lot of peace, a special energy," says the filmmaker, who recalls that Jean-Luc Godard resorted to the services of a similar entity to end his life in September of last year.
