TO DIE (OR NOT)
screenplay by
Ventura Pons
adapted from the stage play
MORIR (Un instant abans de morir)
by Sergi Belbel
Translation
by Edward Cosgrove, Reem Ben Giaber, Emma Homes, Abbie James, Alex Morettin, Samuel Orams, Fredi Smith, Alya Tannous, Ross Williams.Supervised by Maria Delgado.


TO DIE...
1 RATIONALIST BUILDING EXT/NIGHT
The present. Barcelona at night.
A modern apartment block, the ‘Frégoli’- so named by Joan Brossa - on the corner of ‘Madrazo’ and ‘Brusi’, of a certain intellectual category reminiscent of the rationalist aesthetic of the 1930s. Lights are on and there are signs of life in some of the apartments. It’s the house of the film DIRECTOR and his WIFE. The Chinese restaurant situated beneath the apartments turns off its lights, previously projected onto the palm-tree in the middle of the street.
2 DIRECTOR’S BEDROOM INT/NIGHT
A couple, the DIRECTOR and his WIFE, are in bed, asleep. Restless, the DIRECTOR gets up and leaves the room. Half asleep the woman readjusts herself in bed. As we see the action, we hear voices off, relating to the conversation that is about to happen…
WIFE: (Off) Yesterday you also got up in the middle of the night.
DIRECTOR: (Off) At two in the morning.
WIFE: (Off) I was sleeping, you switched the light on, I heard you mumbling, you got up and left the light on.
DIRECTOR: (Off) I wasn’t mumbling.
WIFE: (Off) Yes, you were.
DIRECTOR: (Off) I was just murmuring, thinking out loud.
WIFE: (Off) Murmuring, thinking out loud, mumbling, they’re all the same.
3 DIRECTOR’S STUDY INT/NIGHT
The DIRECTOR works frenetically at the computer…
Voices continue off.
DIRECTOR: (Off) I’ve started working.
WIFE: (Off) On what?
DIRECTOR: (Off) What you’ve been hearing.
WIFE: (Off) Oh… I’m so pleased.
DIRECTOR: (Off) Ah, you’re pleased.
WIFE: (Off) Of course I am. You're working again!
DIRECTOR: (Off) From two to seven in the morning.
The DIRECTOR looks at the time displayed on his computer and…
4 DIRECTOR’S BEDROOM INT/NIGHT
…returns to the bedroom and gets into bed. He looks at his WIFE. Voices off, carry on explaining the situation.
WIFE: (Off) Until seven! I didn’t hear you.
DIRECTOR: (Off) I know. You were snoring.
WIFE: (Off) Tell me what you’ve done.
DIRECTOR: (Off) You were snoring like a man.
5 DIRECTOR’S BATHROOM AND BEDROOM INT/DAY
Real time. The WIFE is finishing getting ready in the bathroom. The DIRECTOR is in the bedroom, slowly putting on his trousers, and lacing up his shoes, etc. The conversation continues.
WIFE: At last, after a year without getting anything done!
DIRECTOR: A year?
WIFE: Or more, isn’t it? Without you producing anything.
DIRECTOR: Nothing?
WIFE: No, nothing. Tell me about it.
DIRECTOR: No, I’m embarrassed…
WIFE: Why?
DIRECTOR: It’s only an idea. The basis for a film.
WIFE: The idea is the essence. And the essence is everything.
The WIFE leaves the bathroom…
6 DIRECTOR’S BEDROOM INT/DAY
… and goes into the bedroom. She takes her clothes from the wardrobe and starts getting dressed while tensely continuing the conversation.
WIFE: The idea is the most difficult part, now you only have to let it develop and transform into words, images, whatever you normally do. So, that’s the end of the bad moods, the irritability and the sleepless nights. The visits to the psychiatrist and those bloody tablets. You call that producer, right now, the one who left a message on the answer-machine, and you tell him that you have a screenplay ready which will make a wonderful film, and please stop me at once, ‘cause I’m talking too much and I want you to tell me the story.
DIRECTOR: The screenplay isn’t ready yet.
WIFE: You’re such a killjoy!
DIRECTOR: What’s more, I don’t think you’ll like it.
WIFE: I’m sure I’ll love it.
DIRECTOR: It’s not a comedy.
WIFE: Even better!
7 DIRECTOR’S KITCHEN INT/DAY
The WIFE is serving breakfast on the table. The DIRECTOR is sitting, watching her agitated movements …
WIFE: There are far too many of these bad comedies deluding people. Lately everybody is starting to pigeon-hole your work, which is not good.
DIRECTOR: To some it may seem a radical story.
WIFE: So what?
DIRECTOR: But it’s not really a radical story.
WIFE: Ah, that’s good. I don’t think there is such a thing as a ‘radical’ story, there are radical people, radical tendencies and ideologies, but stories… I’m not so sure.
DIRECTOR: I mean, it’s more moralistic.
WIFE: Oh, yes, good, there are sensational moralistic stories. I could tell you many; I live them everyday. I don’t know why they don’t inspire you to write a screenplay, the cases we treat at the clinic are real life.
DIRECTOR: Do you want me to tell it to you or not?
WIFE: Of course.
DIRECTOR: Good.
Pause.
WIFE: Well?
DIRECTOR: It’s about a sixteen-year-old boy going… Well, it’s a Saturday evening. No, it’s night. Three in the morning on a Saturday…
WIFE: On a Sunday.
DIRECTOR: Yes, okay.
8 STREET, BARS AND CLUBS EXT/NIGHT
An adolescent MOTORCYCLIST arrives outside a club. He parks the motorbike close to his friends’. He takes his crash helmet off and we see that he is visibly worried.
DIRECTOR: (Off) A street full of bars and clubs. A boy goes out with some mates. He is half drunk. That afternoon he’d split up with his girlfriend.
9 CLUB INT/NIGHT
The MOTORCYCLIST’s friends are dancing furiously…
DIRECTOR: (Off) He has gone to the club to let off steam, to have a shag. Basically just to have a shag. His entire life consists of working as a pizza delivery-boy and, at weekends, bowling around the city trying to screw reasonably pretty, but rather shy girls. His family…
10 DIRECTOR’S KITCHEN INT/DAY
Return to real narrative time. The WIFE interrupts the story.
WIFE: He’s got a girlfriend and at the same time chases after younger girls.
DIRECTOR: No, well, yes. I don’t know. Can I continue?
WIFE: Yes, of course.
DIRECTOR: His family… is kind of rough. The boy doesn’t earn enough to leave home and it’s lucky for him that his mother does everything for…
WIFE: It doesn’t matter, he couldn’t do it anyway.
DIRECTOR: What?
WIFE: Leave home. Even if he did earn enough. He’s only sixteen. He’s under age.
11 STREET, BARS AND CLUBS EXT/NIGHT
We follow the MOTORCYCLIST’s group. They have just come out of the club. The MOTORCYCLIST gets on his motorbike, puts his crash helmet on and leaves at full speed before the others.
DIRECTOR: (Off) Imagine it. They come out of the club. His friends want to go home. He doesn’t. He wanted to screw someone but didn’t manage to. He wants to go on having fun. He suggests to his friends that they all go to another club. They get on their motorbikes. He says “follow me” and leaves at full speed.
12 RESIDENTIAL STREET EXT/NIGHT
A police car runs through a red light and is about to knock down the MOTORCYCLIST but the image freezes.
DIRECTOR: (Off) Fearlessly, he accelerates through a red light, but a car, also jumping a red light crosses in front of him. The collision is inevitable. Death is inevitable. But just a fraction of a second before that, everything freezes.
13 DIRECTOR’S KITCHEN INT/DAY
Real time. The DIRECTOR is absorbed in telling the story.
DIRECTOR: Somebody, not an angel, not heaven, not God, just somebody who grabs that eternal second which was going to throw that young man to a brutal death. From the inertia, a voice from nowhere orders the boy (imitating in a low, powerful voice) "Get off the motorbike and lie down on the road".
14 RESIDENTIAL STREET EXT/NIGHT
The action is still, apart from the MOTORCYCLIST who is getting off the motorbike. Dazzled, he stares at the frozen environment around him. We see him having a conversation with the invisible voice.
DIRECTOR: (Off) Nothing moves. It seems like a photograph. He sees his friends, motionless, a few metres away from him. Unlike the others, the boy has full freedom of movement. He looks at the sky. He starts to suspect that the voice which ordered him to get off the motorbike…
WIFE: (Off) Ordered?
DIRECTOR: (Off) … it is certainly the same god that his parents used to tell him about. The voice says, (every time he refers to the voice he imitates it, playing the part) “No, I am not God. I’m sorry. If you excuse the expression, I am your Future. Do not look up. I am nowhere. I am only here with you”. Naively the boy asks…
MOTORCYCLIST: What the hell is going on?
DIRECTOR: (Off) Firmly the voice continues: "relax and abandon yourself to a long journey". The boy is afraid, thinking that this is death. He jumps up and wants to run away. “No!” (imitating the voice) “Don’t stand up. You are making a mistake”…
15 DIRECTOR’S KITCHEN INT/DAY
The WIFE is very clear about it all.
WIFE: Frank Capra.
DIRECTOR: Will you be quiet.
WIFE: Oh, it’s not a criticism, it’s more of a compliment.
DIRECTOR: Then save it for when I’ve finished and I ask for your opinion.
WIFE: Sorry.
DIRECTOR: You interrupted me.
Pause. The DIRECTOR continues with his story.
DIRECTOR: The boy has to make a journey in a short space of time, a series of fragmented glimpses into his potential future, supposing that he doesn’t die in the accident that night.
WIFE: Dickens, ‘A Christmas Carol’.
DIRECTOR: It’s all the same to me ... Well… Anyway, at this point it’s hypothetical; before the journey begins the voice provides the boy with an opportunity to plan out his ideal future.
16 RESIDENTIAL STREET EXT/NIGHT
Still on the street. The MOTORCYCLIST is talking with the voice.
DIRECTOR: (Off, imitating the voice) “If you had survived, what career would you have chosen?”
MOTORCYCLIST: An executive in a large company. No, I’d like to be a really famous film actor. No, not that, I want to be a multi-millionaire with loads of people working for me, so that I don’t have to do anything.
DIRECTOR: (Off) Then the voice will ask: “With whom would you like to live, with what type of woman?” to which he replies:
MOTORCYCLIST: I want a young, gorgeous, blonde. A bit of a goer.
DIRECTOR: Immediately he changes his mind.
MOTORCYCLIST: No, I want a different woman every two or three weeks.
DIRECTOR: (Off) … and he also asks not to have the hassle of having to get rid of them … He is then asked to describe his ideal home…
MOTORCYCLIST: A luxury apartment in the city, a huge mansion in the mountains with a private ski slope, and my own place on a tropical island paradise.
DIRECTOR: (Off, imitating the voice) Do you want children?
MOTORCYCLIST: Yes, one. A boy. But later, when I’m a lot older.
DIRECTOR: (Off, imitating the voice) Is there anything else?
MOTORCYCLIST: No, no, that’s all for the moment.
17 DIRECTOR’S LIVING ROOM INT/DAY
The DIRECTOR is getting excited. The WIFE is bored with the story.
DIRECTOR: And so the journey begins. The film.
WIFE: And high time too!
DIRECTOR: But can’t you see that this whole scene will only last three or four minutes?
WIFE: Oh, I am sorry!
DIRECTOR: The film begins with the journey, his chosen future. This will conclude with a verdict. No, I’ll explain. At the end of the journey there will be a decision. The events of the journey will reveal the boy’s simplicity, his immaturity.
18 ROOM, MOTORCYCLIST’S HOUSE INT/NIGHT
We see a slightly older MOTORCYCLIST making love to three or four women in turn.
DIRECTOR: (Off) He begins to live out some scenes, one after the other: tirelessly he makes love with different women, each time better looking, but each time more stupid and unbearable.
19 JACUZZI, MOTORCYCLIST’S HOUSE INT/DAY
The MOTORCYCLIST, is totally relaxed…
DIRECTOR: (Off) … he enjoys all possible luxuries.
20 LIVING ROOM, MOTORCYCLIST’S HOUSE INT/DAY
The adult MOTORCYCLIST receives two businessmen while he talks on two telephones at the same time.
DIRECTOR: (Off) …people calling him at all hours. Chasing him everywhere, spying on him, continually giving him a hard time.
21 ROOM, MOTORCYCLIST’S HOUSE INT/NIGHT
The MOTORCYCLIST is alone, sitting on the bed, absent-mindedly.
DIRECTOR: (Off) None of the vivid scenes affect him at all. Most of the time he is idle. And as he doesn’t do anything, he thinks: my life is a disaster, I have it all, but it seems like I have nothing, I’m lonely and bored.
22 DIRECTOR’S LIVING ROOM INT/DAY
We return to real time.
DIRECTOR: The scenes alternate in this way (there have to be some funny ones)…
WIFE: Of course.
DIRECTOR: Until we reach the last scene.
The wife looks at him sceptically.
DIRECTOR: I mean the last one in the journey, not in the film. It takes place in a bed. The boy is now ninety-three.
23 MOTORCYCLIST’S HOUSE INT/NIGHT
The MOTORCYCLIST is now old and wrinkled. He covers himself with the silk sheets. He closes his eyes and falls asleep.
DIRECTOR: (Off) It’s a day like any other. And the boy, now an old man, dies. It’s a quiet death: he falls asleep and doesn’t wake up again. From the age of sixteen to ninety-three: seventy-seven years of ease, of sad indifference. And after seeing himself dying in such circumstances we go back to the scene of the imminent accident.
24 RESIDENTIAL STREET EXT/NIGHT
Everything is still frozen. In the middle of the street the MOTORCYCLIST listens to the last thoughts of the tormenting voice.
DIRECTOR: (Off) The voice asks the big question. “You have to decide. The accident will be fatal. The motorbike will crash head on and you will die instantly, tragically. But there is a chance that at the very last moment the car will swerve unexpectedly, avoiding the accident. Allowing you to live”. But opportunity does not occur without a condition; he will have to live the rest of his days in the way he has just witnessed: with luxury and emptiness. The choice: a heroic death here and now or death after seventy-seven years of boredom and indifference. The boy screams nervously.