Everyone Will Burn

One of the most difficult day to day questions facing Christian theologians is this: how does anybody go to Heaven when somebody they love is in Hell? How is existing in a state of bliss possible, or even desirable, in such a context? Wouldn’t most parents prefer to be where their children are, no matter the personal cost? This question lies at the heart of David Hebrero’s complex and not altogether successful fable, which sees the mother of a youth who died by suicide abruptly confronting the nature of her feelings for him and her desire for revenge.

Suicide, to the Catholic inhabitants of small Spanish villages like the one where this is set, is a mortal sin. Maria José (Macarena Gómez) sees this as all the more unjust because her boy was hounded to his death, relentlessly bullied for being a little person. She too is held in contempt by the villagers, and she is on the verge of jumping off a bridge when she is interrupted by the unexplained appearance of a female child (Sofia García), covered in mud, who is also a little person. There is something beyond the ordinary at work here, however, as the child soon demonstrates an unnatural and deeply disturbing power. Giving her the contextually portentous name of Lucía, Maria José takes her home and tries to protect her, though it is increasingly implied that the child has been sent by somebody, and that the relationship works the other way round.

Despite the presence of a single incident featured heavily in the promotional images, this is not a film about literally setting people on fire. The burning can be interpreted as metaphor or a reference to the afterlife, and, whilst they remain opposed, the relative natures of Heaven and Hell are called into question. The townspeople, confident of their purity, fear and prophesised apocalypse. It is hinted that, in the past, they even went so far as to sacrifice a child in an effort to prevent it. Now Maria José fears that they will do the same to Lucía.

Although we remain close to Maria José throughout, Hebrero takes care to ensure that we understand the villagers’ perspective. What Lucía does would traditionally make her a horror film villain. García has an impressive presence for someone so young, and it is her acting, as much as the ensuing events, which makes her terrifying. Frantic, the villagers search for possible reasons for her arrival, bringing everybody’s dirty laundry out into the open in the process.

There is not danger of the film becoming unbalanced due to García’s charisma. Gómez is quite capable of matching her, especially given the flood of intense emotions that her character is dealing with. Whilst the two of them work well, however, elsewhere the histrionic acting style is less successful, and with the film running to more than two hours, it becomes exhausting. Your capacity to deal with this should be one of your primary considerations when deciding whether or not to see the film.

Hebrero has a background in cinematography and, partnering here with Ona Isart, delivers profoundly beautiful visuals of the sort really essential to exploring subject matter of this type. The result is a treat for the eyes, if not the ears. He struggles to contain all his themes and the muddled delivery has clearly left some viewers confused, but at the heart of all this is a force of maternal love which anyone should be able to connect with, and everything else be damned.