''You Shall Die in Chafarinas'' () is a 1995 crime thriller film directed by

Pedro Olea Pedro Olea (30 June 1938, Bilbao) is a Spanish screenwriter, film producer and film director. His films '' A House Without Boundaries'' (1972) and '' Akelarre'' (1984) entered into the 22nd and the 34th Berlin International Film Festival. His ...

. It is based on the novel by . It stars Jorge Sanz and

María Barranco María de los Remedios Barranco García (born 11 June 1961) better known as María Barranco is a Spanish actress, who has won two Goya Awards for Goya Award for Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actress. Biography María de los Remedios ...

alongside Óscar Ladoire and Javier Albalá.

Plot

Featuring the backdrop of

military conscription Conscription, also known as the draft in the United States and Israel, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it conti ...

and set in a military barracks in

Melilla Melilla (, ; ) is an autonomous city of Spain on the North African coast. It lies on the eastern side of the Cape Three Forks, bordering Morocco and facing the Mediterranean Sea. It has an area of . It was part of the Province of Málaga un ...

, the plot touches themes such as the suicide of conscripts and substance consumption. Two begrudging privates (Jaime and Cidraque) see themselves forced to act as casual investigators in the wake of series of deaths in the barracks (two deaths from

overdose A drug overdose (overdose or OD) is the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities much greater than are recommended. Retrieved on September 20, 2014.

and the ensuing killing of a

homosexual Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exc ...

conscript).

Cast

Production

Based on the 1990 novel ''Morirás en Chafarinas'' by Fernando Lalana, the screenplay was penned by Pedro Olea and Francisco Lalana. The film is an Altube Filmeak SL production, with the participation of TVE. Shooting locations included a barracks in

Aranjuez Aranjuez () is a city and municipality of Spain, part of the Community of Madrid. Located in the southern end of the region, the main urban nucleus lies on the left bank of the Tagus, a bit upstream of the discharge of the Jarama. , the munici ...

, Community of Madrid.

Release

Distributed by Columbia Tri-Star Films de España, the film was theatrically released in Spain on 21 April 1995.

Reception

Casimiro Torreiro of ''

El País (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA. It is the second-most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . is the most read newspaper in ...

'' assessed that, while the script apparently features seemingly everything to be functional for an entertaining narration, the writing "lacks work to polish the details", concluding that "no one will be able to say that

he film He or HE may refer to: Language * He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads * He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English * He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana) * Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter cal ...

is not a well shot and interpreted film. But that alone is not enough to achieve a satisfactory product."

References