‘Death Does Not Exist’ review: Animation follows young activists into battle

Dir/scr: Felix Dufour-Laperrier. Canada/France. 2025. 72mins

The tension between social responsibility and personal preservation takes centre stage in this Canadian French animation, whose expressive hand-drawn visuals help bring depth and impact to a somewhat-slight narrative. Focusing on a group of French-Canadian activists who mount an ill-fated violent attack on a wealthy target, Death Does Not Exist uses its dreamlike tone to make sharp real-world points about the potential power – and undeniable limitations – of individual action.

There is a hallucinogenic quality to the painstakingly hand-drawn animation

Writer/director Felix Dufour-Laperrier won the Annecy Contrechamps Jury Award in 2021 with his third feature Archipel, and follow-up Death Does Not Exist will also go on to play in competition at the animation festival after making its debut in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. (The film was showcased in Annecy’s work-in-progress section in 2024.) Further festival play is likely, and UFO Distribution will release in France and Maison 4:3 in Canada. Further afield, the film may be distinctive enough to pique the interest of socially conscious distributors interested in animation with more mature themes.

At the centre of the story is Hélène (voiced by Zeneb Blanchet), a member of a small group of angry young activists planning to ambush a wealthy local family – so-called ‘figures of the establishment’. Their idealistic hope is that the shockwaves from the event will bring about a fairer, more balanced new world order. “All it takes is a bit of courage,” asserts group leader Manon (Karelle Tremblay). “It will all collapse.” This sentiment is rendered literally by Dufour-Laperrier as a marauding tidal wave-cum-earthquake, which devours the opulent home and its surroundings and lays down new ground on which, it’s assumed, the next generation can build anew.

Yet when the moment of action comes – a stylised orgy of violence which has moments of visceral beauty amid the carnage – Hélène is paralysed by fear, and her friends, including potential lover Marc (Mattis Savard-Verhoeven) are killed. Hélène flees into the woods, possibly wounded herself, where she is haunted by Manon, who tells her that she now has a second chance. During this dark night of the soul, Hélène must choose whether to stand up for her friends, and her beliefs, or run and save herself.

Despite a concise running time, Dufour-Laperrier’s screenplay can feel stretched – Hélène and Manon spend a lot of time wandering the woods, encountering a young girl who may or may not be a younger version of Hélène, running from their pursuers and engaging in discussions about loyalty, responsibility and fear. There is a lot of repetition in the dialogue, perhaps intentionally given the quasi-dreamstate in which the action takes place – is Hélène dreaming or dying, or both? – but it sometimes feels like a point being hammered home.

Visually, however, Dafour-Laperrier’s approach is more nuanced and intriguing. There is a hallucinogenic quality to the painstakingly hand-drawn two-dimensional animation, whose simple appearance belies a wealth of detail. He uses a muted palette with pops of colour, and, while Hélène takes on the solid hues of her surroundings, Manon and Marc appear as ethereal outlines, blurring the boundary between character and backdrop.

Elsewhere, the textural natural beauty of the forest, with its abundant flora and fauna, contrasts with the manicured artifice of the target family’s home, highlighting just what Hélène, Manon – and, by extension, their generation – are fighting for. Similarly, music is restrained and sound design from Olivier Calvert and Samuel Gagnon-Thibaudeau knits together an evocative natural soundscape into which shouts, gunshots and, occasionally, electronic tones occasionally intrude.