Cannes 2025 Review: DEATH DOES NOT EXIST, Existential Angst in Animated Feature

A group of young activists are about to embark on their plan to kill an industrialist in her remote mansion in the forest. Their aim is to shock the status-quo of powers that be, as the rich and powerful destroy nature without any repercussions. Their actions will make ripples. 

But Hélène, a young member of the group, is having second thoughts about the terrorist act she is about to be part of. Their plan plays out with many casualties on both sides, with Hélène, frozen in fear, witnessing all the carnage, especially the graphic death of a young man who professed his love for her.

Before their attack, he hands her a letter in an envelope and she says she would read it after their deeds. As the film progresses, this unopened letter becomes a portal to Hélène gaining her second chance.

The rest of the film is Hélène's internal struggle/dialog that's taking place over idealism, identity and morality. Her opposition is in the form of Manon, one of her fellow activists friends, who might or might not have perished in the attack, to chastise Hélène's indecisions and inaction. With the armed guards as well as wolves on their trail, they hike deeper into the woods.

The artistry in Death Does Not Exist by Canadian-French animator Félix Dufour-Laperriére is unique and striking. Unlike the multiple animation techniques he deployed in his last film, Archipelago (2021), that included some live action sequences and still photos, Death features simply drawn — outlines of the facial features and bodies without any discernible details, except for hairstyles — characters in monochrome (uniformly yellow, green in different tones, and so forth), and nature and buildings with some other muted colors, just to distinguish from one another. There's an elegance in his minimalist aesthetics, and it all serves to showcase the inner turmoil of Hélène and its time bending, dream-like narrative.

The most visually exciting parts are the statues of wolves in the greenhouse of the industrialist's mansion that starts the film, as their snarling facial expressiones change in the lighting from different angles and and the sequences of cataclysmic event, as Hélène imagines the nature — the waves of vegetation taking over the human civilization, which reminded me of a ferocity and fluidity of many nature themed Miyazaki films.

As the ghost of Manon and Hélène's younger self push Hélène toward the second chance at participating in the assassination and in turn saving the young man she loves, Death Does Not Exist reverts back to the scene of a crime multiple times, with Hélène being still not sure if her action is the right thing to do.

The philosophical implication of a young idealistic woman in the face of violence and remorse at its center, Death Does Not Exist explores hefty subjects in an unique and intriguing way.

Death Does Not Exist plays as part of Directors' Fortnight section of 2025 Cannes Film Festival.

Dustin Chang is a freelance writer. His musings and opinions on everything cinema and beyond can be found at www.dustinchang.com