Guillermo Flórez: Lord Take Me Soon
Gosh, what a film, what a woman, a sad comedy, but also a documentary with a message… Let me give you the precise logline from the website of the director’s company: “Carmen’s life has always been a Quixotesque comedy. Living through a civil war, being a nun, building a new life, divorcing in a conservative society, having several lovers and most of all, never following orders. Now, after 86 years of adventures, Carmen is planning her suicide.”
The message: Never follow orders. Live your life fully. She did so, Carmen, and Guillermo Flórez followed her for a year. They established a friendship, she liked that he came to visit, maybe she did not have so many friends; for many she was a rebellious person, always making trouble, as the old lady friend of hers says, when she visits her. Carmen is 86, the old lady 10 years older, and she married the ugliest man in town. A hilarious dialogue scene of many. She meets her son and his wife and daughter, they don’t understand her decision to take her own life. But all is planned, she is distributing her furniture and household goods, she is full of energy and stories that she tells to the director and his camera, often while tearing photos apart from her youth, an attractive woman she was, into the fireplace with the memories so to say. Scenes accompanied by her comments, you understand that she has had an interesting life. “I will cry when you are no longer here”, the director says. “Why, go eat a nice dinner and drink a good glass of wine” is her response in this amazing portrait, a documentary gem simply.
Spain/France, 2025, 70 mins.
