Les Revenants (They Came Back) (7/10)

Les Revenants or They Came Back is an artistic zombie-ish movie from France, directed by Robin Campillo. Across the globe, millions of the recently deceased have come back from the dead and walked back into society, and the film focuses in on a small French town where the mayor and a committee of officials determine the best course of action. The dead return to their loved ones, to their jobs- ultimately, attempting to return to their lives, but there are subtle, disturbing differences in their new incarnations.

The movie is intriguing and gripping. I was pretty sucked in throughout the whole movie for several reasons. First, probably my favorite aspect of this movie is the subtlety of the acting. The "dead" behave seemingly normal, but seem distant; their motor skills are only slightly slower and, as one character describes it, they behave as if constantly stuck in a world where they have just begun to wake up- their minds are flooded with jumbled memories and thoughts and feelings that they can't process, and in the meantime they are just going through the motions of life. While I generally enjoy a good horror-zombie flick, it is nice to see a different, more subtle take, instead of the limping-on-a-broken-leg rotting corpse-zombies or even the jittery, fast moving zombies of 28 Days Later.

The bizarre thing about this movie is that at first, the problem is approached very logically, and so I was expecting a scientific explanation, or at least some sort of explanation as to their presence and all of that. It just seemed natural. But little thought seems to be put into where they came from, and in the end we are left with no answer. In fact, by the end of the movie, one begins to feel that the entire affair is completely inexplicable and random, and I wondered at the purpose. But it's clear to me that the theme of this movie and the major idea that is portrayed is that we often long for the return of our lost loved ones, and Campillo seems to be trying to show what that would look like; the emotions felt and the strange way one learns to live with someone that has struggled to get over and has accepted as gone... if that makes sense.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and will probably watch it again.