‘Love Is Just A Death Away’ (SXSW ’21) Spoiler Review

Love is Just a Death Away is one of the lovelier, more emotional short films that I’ve seen at South by Southwest. A stop-motion project by Czech filmmaker Bára Anna Stejskalová, I don’t think you can get a better image of life than this. Read ahead for something sad, but also something hopeful.

Plot Summary

The synopsis of Stejskalová’s short narrative is as follows:

Sometimes life starts after death for someone. For someone like a parasite, which walks with a rotting corpse of a dead dog around old landfill. Trapped in his unpalatable body he tries to find love and friendship.

The story centers on the aforementioned animal as it searches for companionship in other animals, more specifically a rat and a bird. Due to the fact that it is produced as a stop-motion film, not much is said. Instead, the structure of Love is Just a Death Away relies heavily on the actions of its characters.

Discussion

Writing a brief screenplay without dialogue is a challenge I’ve learned about in my Screenwriting class a few springs ago. In her graduating film, Stejskalová accomplishes this feat in less than eleven minutes of content. Just the logline alone had me hooked: “A tender story about finding love even amid utter decay. ” Aside from what the director noted in the sent press material, I do have other insights to make here.

Her landfill setting is a powerful synecdoche for our world at large. When I first started out as a writer, I’ve noted that Stephen King’s town Derry in his novel It is a perfect example of the point I’m making. In some of the films I’ve seen at SXSW, I’m reminded how dark our surroundings can make life look. However, amidst all that is filthy and disordered, I believe there is also beauty and purity — both within and external to ourselves.

Stejskalová’s dead dog character is a perfect symbol for an entity that requires love. Even in death, canines need all the attention they can get. It’s like what the famous adage says, “Gone but not forgotten.” The addition of the bird to the story brings a sense of hope and potential. I believe the cockroaches that appear in the film represent the real parasites that “eat away” at our well-being. In this case, I refer to the dog’s flesh. The rat’s objective is to search for something, but unfortunately, it isn’t love. Simply put, their bodies are just vessels that contain their consciousnesses.

Conclusion

Love is Just a Death Away has personally become rather one of my favorite films at SXSW. Succinct and non-reliant on spoken word, I think this would make a great inspiration for up-and-coming filmmakers. I very much enjoyed the climax of the film in which some large destruction machine poses as one of the animals’ bigger threats. I would argue that it represents the system of capitalist development that tears, crushes, and ruins everything in its path. This image has become all the more relatable during this pandemic period. Overall, I must commend Stejskalová for her storytelling techniques, such as diverse character roles, symbolic imagery, and just appealing stop-motion.

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