They Came Back

Four and a half thousand years ago, the Sumerian civilization existed in the land we now call Iraq. In a surviving work of their literature, deciphered from a baked clay tablet, we learn that their goddess of love, named Inanna (who was called Ishtar by the later Babylonians), threatened to go down to the Underworld and smash the doors, saying: 'And all the dead will get out, and they will outnumber the living.' This ancient fear of our species, explicitly documented circa 2500 BC but really extending throughout the entire history of mankind, is explored in this strange and eerie French film, which has now inspired a popular French television series of the same original title and theme. This film is entitled in French LES REVENANTS, which means THE RETURNED, and that is the title used now on the DVD release with English subtitles, though the cinema release with subtitles a few years ago was as THEY CAME BACK, a title which has now been abandoned, so that the continuity may be clear to purchasers that this is the basis of the TV series, which is making a hit. Essentially, this is a film about zombies, but it is not at all a horror film, and none of them stagger around making gormless noises and bashing people. Nor are they comical, in the hysterically funny mode of SHAUN OF THE DEAD with Simon Pegg (2004, see my review), which by strange coincidence came out in the same year as this film, for this film portrays zombies very seriously and thoughtfully, and is as far from being a comedy as you can get. The study of the 'returned dead' is extremely sophisticated. One day, without explanation, large numbers of recently dead people are seen walking from the cemetery back into a provincial French town. They are all physically fit but rather dazed and uncommunicative. In this town alone, 13,000 of them suddenly appear, having left their graves. They are not at all threatening, but are quiet and reserved and, somewhat ominously, all seem to have an understanding with one another. We are told that millions of 'returned dead' have appeared all over France, and some satire creeps into the film here, because meetings are held in which various politically correct people insist that the human rights of these dead people must be respected, they must all have their old jobs back, and their pensions must be reinstated. Most of them are elderly, but there are a few younger ones and children. Extensive bureaucracy then grinds into slow motion, as the returnees are identified and kept in a compound, sleeping on bunks before being reunited with their families. But then it is noticed that they are not sleeping, but merely pretending to sleep. It is also noticed that their body temperatures are all five degrees lower than normal. They are hyper-active and begin to have secret meetings at night while 'living humans' are asleep. They become increasingly restless and seem continually to want to flee, but it is not clear to where they wish to flee. They have mostly lost their memories, which come back to them slowly, although they are perfectly capable of speaking fluently when they need to, and of carrying out any daily tasks. They remember where they used to live and recognise their family members. But they appear to be incapable of relating to any living person emotionally, or having any feelings. Hence, there are no tearful reunions and desperate huggings. They are distant, and the living humans are made very uncomfortable by their presence, so that many people refuse to see the returned dead whom they had once loved. This is a very strange film indeed, very much under-stated, and hence all the more effective for that reason. This wonderfully evocative and mysterious film was the first film directed by Robin Campillo, and it was an impressive debut, done with great skill. He has just completed his second film, EASTERN BOYS (2013), which is apparently not yet released. Campillo also wrote this film, jointly with Brigitte Tijou. It is no wonder that this provocative and disturbing examination of one of our deepest fears has inspired a television series, for it is easy to think of endless episodes in which further and further layers of mystery are peeled away from this nearly inexhaustible subject. After all, the subject of zombies is never really dead, even though they themselves are.

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.

This film stirs a few emotional quandaries, many of which a viewer may choose not to explore. If the purpose of film is to generate thought and reflection as much as to entertain, 'Les Revenants' succeeds by virtue of it's creepy essence and the personal and social problems we'd encounter as individuals if faced with the reality of having our dead loved ones come back to us. The subject is handled cleverly and touchingly by the director who never attempts to drive our view but allows the characters to help us define our feelings. Particularly perplexing for a parent who might give just about anything to see their fallen child again. The misty night scenes, serene almost drugged manner with which the dead carry themselves and the evolution of divided feelings regarding their return by the living give the film an ethereal pace which may disappoint flesh hungry zombie fans.

The dead have inexplicably returned to life en masse across the world; it's the resurrection of the million recently deceased, who have left the cemeteries to invade the cities. But no crucifixes, no shotguns, useless, they don't eat. The brain, the heart, the liver, the intestines-no need, no taste without pleasure.

They fix you with one of those icy stares from another world, unknown even beyond the unimaginable to our spiritual understanding of the nature of creation. A description of inert, wandering bodies, without strength or feeling, just human beings, all restrained, serving as a vestige of a previous life.

And since the phenomenon stopped suddenly, as if the doors of the ambiguous, ambivalent world of psychological shock, full of doubt and mystery of life on Earth, had closed again, a real hole, black, dark, obscure, and abyssal, of terrestrial organic matter awaits us, a down-to-earth return to this. We have now entered a new and particularly delicate phase:

The reintegration of the dead into their families. Mourning for the registered inhabitants of a small French town, with this unexpected miracle: thousands try to integrate into a society that has changed for them, the society in which they live or in which they lived, living things in their lifetime, even death knows no more in this point of no return, the void, the absolute of cinema, 4-5.

After I realized this movie is not a horror or a trash one, just because it has zombies in its plot I thought it has a great creative mind behind the story; however, when the movie ended I felt there was something missing in the story. The movie does not care much about explaining its core issue that is about the coming of the dead people themselves. Why did they return to live if all they want is to go to the tunnels? It does not say where the tunnels will lead them. To heaven or to hell? to the Elygian fields? to Mars? or to some new dimension? I would not bother if the movie was longer just to explain this part carefully. If so,the movie would be brilliant. Unfortunately it is not a brilliant movie. It is only good to make us think about the crazy hypothesis that the movie is talking about, which is, at least, interesting. My note is to say that according to my own interpretations, the movie never tries to sound funny as some other critics say, but tragic and hypothetical. People are never prepared to welcome their dead relatives with eager if they knock at their door after some years of "absence", even if you love them so much.