They Came Back

I liked this film, but potential genre viewers beware, this is a subtitled French film, but since I enjoy both horror films and art house movies I had little problem with its leisurely pacing. Some reviewers have commented on a lack of horror, this is true, but there are plenty of unsettling scenes and the film has a genuine sense of unease hanging over it. It takes place in a high-rise suburb of the Ile-de-France, a region of Paris. There is something of a J.G. Ballard-like feel of dislocation to the urban surroundings that matches the inability of the returned dead to fit in with the lives of their previously grieving loved ones. Similarly, as in the short story The Monkey's Paw, it is perhaps better not to have your loved ones return from the dead because they may not be quite as you'd like them to be.

It's a fascinating premise and goes to show how the zombie genre can be tweaked in to interesting new shapes. However, writer and first time director Robin Compillo does not explore the full socio-economic possibilities of the situation, let alone the potential for horror. He instead considers some of the emotional implications involved in regard to loss and wish fulfilment in relation to the returned loved ones. It might be hoped that They Came Back could kick start a new direction in the zombie genre, as a global phenomenon there are thousands of potential scenarios. However, it is unlikely this modest and thoughtful little chiller (imagine M.Night Shyamalan when he was modest and thoughtful) will have the same impact as Night of the Living Dead.

I was stunned by this one - from the opening sequence on I was completed transfixed. The slow and melancholy pacing, the morose blue filters, the long silences and the fixed stares, all combined to create a spacious and powerfully - almost painfully - introspective viewing experience.

This is a remarkable meditation on the Zombie sub-genre as well, although clearly partaking of something quite well beyond that more limited scope. No corpse-eating ghouls here: just a fascinating "what if" that raises painful questions about what we do with death and the dead in our own collective imagination. In this particular return of the repressed, being forced to mull over the tedious, bureaucratic details of what would have to happen if hundreds of millions of dead people suddenly reappeared in our midst actually serves to engage the viewer in a very personal way. I found myself interrogating myself over and over about what kind of response I would have in a similar situation, and identifying with the film's protagonists on all sorts levels, and the experience was quite moving.

All the nuances of grief and mourning were shockingly subtle and well-conceived, as well as superbly acted.

The whole time I was watching I kept thinking: "Thank god for the French!" Such a movie could simply never arise from Hollywood.

Let's get this out of the way first: I watched this because I'm obsessive about the wonderful French TV series of the same name, and in the absence of the never-to-be-made season 3 this seemed worth a try to alleviate my withdrawal symptoms!

And I was not disappointed. It's not a patch on the outstanding TV show (but then what is?). However it is a haunting, thought-provoking slow burner which is, ultimately, a melancholy meditation on love, grief and the meaning of human identity.

And we should be very, very grateful to this movie for inspiring the kind of gentle, confused, almost human zombie that eventually gave us those unmissable two seasons of TV.

I liked this movie. It had a dreamy, parable-like quality to it that reminded me of films like Man Facing Southeast (1986) and The Rapture (1991). The focus is not really on the plot, so if you are annoyed with movies that don't explain a lot of the action, this is probably not the movie for you. Some would probably find it a little pretentious too; personally, it was well within my own threshold.

The cinematography is really good throughout, and the acting is well-done. The director is very successful in evoking a strange, off-kilter feeling, which predominates and occasionally escalates into eeriness and even a little dread. The newly returned dead are enigmas to their living relations and the audience both.

I felt somewhat let down by the ending, but not as much as I would have thought if I'd known the plot of the movie beforehand. Although some things in the movie (mostly plot elements) were not resolved to my satisfaction, I did feel like the character development was complete by the end. That focus is fairly typical of the movie as a whole.

It was the first time a director had tackled the "living dead" subject in a realistic way,without falling into the routine of the fantasy and horror treatment.One has never got the feeling of watching another "night of the living dead" rip off.

The problem of this ambitious movie is that it is too ambitious.Instead of focusing on ONE character ,it tries to tell us the story of several characters who rose from the dead and the treatment is too superficial and too diffuse to involve us.Who ,after all ,has never dreamed he meets again one of his faithful departed alive as you or me?I had never asked myself this question when I saw all those story like movies involving people risen from the dead.

The writers often boils down such an extraordinary thing to problems of employment or of temperature (about 32°C,if we believe them).

Absorbing subject but the movie is not up to scratch.Too bad.Worth a look ,if only for its originality.