Nowadays it is very difficult to find a film with the elegance that the great masters once taught us. And I think of Visconti, for example. Films where elegance is not only appreciated in the aesthetics of a period reconstruction, but also in the treatment of psychological or existential problems. Surely such conflicts must appear differently in people of refined spirits and higher education.
I don't know if this is what Patricia Delso Lucas wanted to express in her film "For I am Dead", but it is what I felt in the 18 minutes that she takes to tell us about the closet anguish of a 19th century man, living a mansion that offers him opium and women, who seem not to be enough for him.
Yes, there is an aesthetic issue that prevails in the care of the settings and in the treatment of light, which allows us to live what happens as if it were a dream. All the credit seems to go to the direction, and to Al Nazemian's excellent performance. Patricia was born in Madrid, educated in Scotland and today lives in Brussels.
About her film she herself said: “A period piece, 18 minutes. A dark, surreal drama. A story about unrequited love, self-acceptance and the limits of the sane mind.”
With the script of For I Am Dead, I wanted to show the personal and social struggle to accept the nature of who an individual is, when his/her desires or choices do not correspond to the majority. In this particular case, Oscar is fighting with his repressed homosexuality, but this is just one of many possible incarnations portraying this dilemma.
Within the vulgarity that prevails like an avalanche in contemporary cinema, “For I am Dead” stands out like an island. It is exquisite.