Written, directed, and starred by Iair Said, Los domingos mueren más personas offers a look at sickness, death, and the LGBTQ+ life that follows David coming back from Europe to attend his uncle's funeral in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He then discovers his mother's plan to let go of his comatose father.
According to Said, he wrote the script in 2015 in order to express in an artistic way what he otherwise couldn't, the situation his father was living through, and how that made Said feel. Inspired by the price his family had to pay and how usual funerals were on Sunday, he considered it important to talk about the numbers of death, the business, and the money behind it. An uncommon theme to see in movies that is treated here, e.g., one of David's family members tries to bargain the price for the cemetery service. He also wanted to depict the reality of the LGTBQ+ community through a non-hegemonic protagonist, unlike, according to him, the way it is usually done.
Conceptually, the movie is interesting as the death of a relative can be a platform for ruminations about our finitude and therefore a mirror to our own lives, begging existential questions. Even though this is the theme that bathes the movie, it isn't explored enough in its 75 minutes, which feel longer than that. David's life in Buenos Aires is full of banalities that add more to the protagonist's idiosyncrasies than what is of interest, eating at fast-food drive-throughs, driving lessons, buying and taking pills, partying, family dinners, etc. Said expressed his preference for spontaneity over planification, and it clearly shows. David is a very simple protagonist whose main preoccupation seems to be whether he'll ever be loved. This almost sounds like a coming-of-age if it weren't for him being 36 years old. Los domingos mueren más personas reminds of Woody Allen, only in how his protagonists, played by him or not, are full of Allen's traits. The difference is that David is neither likeable nor interesting. He's like a teen in the body of an adult, unidimensional and prisoner of his wants. In the movie, he's often seen trying advances with many men he comes across. Questionable attitudes like this help too little to make him a sympathetic character.
The movie finds its greatest asset in Rita Cortese who plays David's mother, Dora. She is a much more interesting and likeable character than our protagonist. Not only she's responsible for the little humor this laugh-free comedy has to offer, consisting mainly of frugality in buying this or that, but also adds profundity to what otherwise would be completely devoid of. Ultimately, Iair Said's sophomore film comes across as an auto-indulgent and stagnant portrayal without much to say.
