Les revenants
Tags: flashback

Plot synopsis:
The recently deceased of an anonymous French town suddenly return to life, calmly streaming forth from a cemetery in a silent procession. The town council, led by the mayor (Victor Garrivier), makes plans to house the returned and help reintroduce them to society. The mayor informs the council that the event has lasted for roughly two hours throughout France, returning an estimated 70 million people to life nation-wide, with more than 13,000 in their town alone, all of whom had died within the previous 10 years.
However, the reintegration poses challenges. The returned suffer from effects similar to those that may be seen after severe concussion, such as disorientation, sleep disturbance, and wandering. Former professionals among the returned are moved to menial jobs when it becomes clear that, although they can perform rote tasks, they can no longer engage in spontaneous problem solving or planning, and that even their apparent consciousness may be an illusion. This behaviour adds to the growing sentiment that the returned are different from their former selves. However, while the returned generally function sluggishly during the day, a doctor named Gardet (Frédéric Pierrot) has become suspicious of the returned after observing some of them clandestinely attending animated meetings, conducted in the middle of the night, during which their symptoms seem to disappear.
Nonetheless, the returned reunite with their former loved ones: the mayor's wife, Martha (Catherine Samie), with the mayor; a 6-year-old boy, Sylvain (Saady Delas), with his parents, Isham (Djemel Barek) and Véronique (Marie Matheron); a young man, Mathieu (Jonathan Zaccaï), with his wife, Rachel (Géraldine Pailhas). Rachel is initially reluctant to see Mathieu, until one day he follows her home, acting as though he never left. Rachel eventually accepts him, and the two make love. In addition to the nocturnal meetings of the returned, Gardet also observes the gradual reunion of Rachel and Mathieu with growing concern, but when he tries to warn her of possible danger, Rachel rebuffs him.
One evening a series of explosions tears through the town, apparently detonated by the returned in an act of mass sabotage but without inflicting any casualties. In the chaos, the returned head for a network of underground tunnels. The mayor attempts to stop his wife from leaving with the rest but begins to feel ill and, after Martha urges him to "give in", apparently dies, only to appear later in the tunnels among the returned. The military responds by gassing the returned with a chemical that induces a permanent coma.
After guiding some of the returned to the tunnels, Mathieu makes his way back to Rachel, and recounts to her the events leading to his fatal car accident. He reveals that he crashed the car while looking for her after the two had fought. Rachel follows him into the tunnels, tearfully kissing him before he disappears into the darkness. She returns to the surface and observes the military carting away the comatose bodies. The bodies are laid atop their graves in the cemetery and slowly vanish.

Review: 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 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..
Forget those flesh-eating zombie movies, how much more scary would be for the world if the dead rose and wanted their old lives back!.
Well, anyone who's been to a 'zombie' movie knows that nothing good can come from bringing the dead back to life, but director Robin Campillo presents a more interesting dilemma.
How would a society accommodate and re-integrate their loved ones and relatives if they suddenly came walking out of the cemetery with clean clothes, no illnesses, and energy to spare.What director Campillo has done is replaced 'scary' with 'eerie' as a local government struggles to shelter and re-located hundreds of the town's former inhabitants.
In addition, the town's mayor must decide whether people can return to their old jobs, their old lives, or whether they should be studied to determine how all this came about.Film takes a very matter-of-fact approach to sifting through a population influx, much like having a large group of refugees arrive in your town.
The local scientists do make some early discoveries involving reduced sleep patterns, lower body, temperature, and how these 'arrivals' may only be acting normal as memory response.If you enjoyed last year's "Time Out" (which Campillo co-wrote), then you'll also appreciate this spooky, but 'non-flesh eating', dead people coming back to life cinema experience.
Oh, and both movies are populated with previously dead people, of course."Solaris" and "Les Revenants" pose similar questions as well: Are we dealing with actual "returnees," or are we simply struggling with the very palpable memories of those who have passed on?
The film doesn't offer up any easy answers either as we see the crypt-dwellers attempting to return to their lives in the little French village as if things were...just fine.And regarding the lack of answers, we also never find out what it was like to actually be dead either.
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.
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.
The whole time I was watching I kept thinking: "Thank god for the French!" Such a movie could simply never arise from Hollywood..
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.
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.
One day, without explanation, large numbers of recently dead people are seen walking from the cemetery back into a provincial French town.
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.
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.
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.
The socio-politic part, "how can we reintegrate thousands of ex-dead people back to normal life", is just a small part of the movie.Why is Les Revenants so good?
I found it to be a very good, eerie, sometimes creepy, but certainly emotionally disturbing film.Okay, if you expected to see flesh-ripping granny's who leave their denture sets in bloodied victims, you might get disappointed.
This certainly is not a horror/action movie.One of Ray Bradbury's MARTIAN CHRONICLES told about one of the first earth expeditions on Mars, where they found a small town just like home, in the USA.
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.
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.
Once the film has opened and we see the dead streaming into the town, and the town council discussing how it will be handled, all of the intriguing bits have occurred.The movie is devoid of life, including the living characters.
The music was pretty decent, and could have contributed to the atmosphere if the movie was actually interesting, but unfortunately there was nothing good for it to contribute to.This managed to be a poster child for the worst stereotypes of french films- boring and pretentious.I can't really summarize the end without giving spoilers, but what I will say is that the end of the film provided no resolution, no revelations, and nothing interesting.I recommend watching this if you're experiencing a bad case of insomnia- it would probably be more effective than sleeping pills..
Geraldine Pailhas confesses it on the making-of: " If I live this situation for real, I would laugh, cry, speak, stay silent, be happy & be terrified, but HERE, the director wanted no feelings".So, as I said in another review, sometimes the dead should never come back !!!!.
The movie is meant to be painfully and excruciatingly slow, for it to bring forth its philosophy about life and death, and its abstract ideas about existentialism.The big question presented, though it is hardly ever gonna come true anyway, is how will society react if the dead suddenly became alive again?
The movie begins with stoned elderly folks walking, and walking, and walking some more when the opening credits rolled, until it is said that the dead are walking the earth, and are quickly scrambled to makeshift holding areas while awaiting the relatives to come claim them, and for everyone else to try and make sense of this phenomenon.Perhaps Heaven is getting crowded, or Hell has frozen over, that the departed need to return to the land of the living.
The barrage of statistics -- everyone who died in the past 15 years, X% are this old, Y% that old, Z% have jobs to return to, W% walk nine miles each day, V% of their language is U% comprehensible  often seems to apply just to the town, but more likely, given the level of the misguided science, is general.
Probably the writers deemed more deaths inconvenient, or did the normal folk's lives freeze even to the suspension of accidental, deliberate, and health-related death until order returned?If revenants emerge worldwide, then a key touch point film is Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Kairo.
Sadly, this was one of the worst 2 hours I've ever spent.The movie kept asking questions, (maybe most importantly) like "Why did the dead return?" Not a single question was answered!!!!
It's too willing to overlook so many obvious questions while determined to doggedly 'probe' a set of issues that oddly don't seem very pressing, to wit, "what would we do if dead people came back to life, wouldn't eat our flesh but couldn't work either, were boring to be around, and wished they were dead?" Duh!
I think she'd like it.PS: 'Grapes of Death,' which sounds like a title a francophobe humorist would come up with but is a real French zombie pic, is also available for your 'enjoyment.' Definitely more blood-n-gore, somewhat less philosophical (but only somewhat), but still a b-movie that is neither good enough nor bad enough to be good..
Débutant director Robin Campillo makes a pleasant film about the status of dead people in a living society !!!!.
Can the community and the dead reconvene properly or will the oddity of the situation and the difficulty in dealing with it be too much for the living?While certainly more of a fantasy/sci-fi (like a more serious Cocoon, for example), Les Revenants offers some truly chilling and frightening moments, and treats us to a more psychological fear than a visual one.
The thought of all of our recently deceased loved ones returning from the grave, while seeming like a pleasant idea at first, still chills me to the core.
The bewildered townspeople are told that they can visit their loved ones, but are not forced to take them back: it is understood that an enormous personal and emotional adjustment will have to be made, and that in some cases it may be impossible.Slowly, the dead return into the community.
Débutant director Robin Campillo has made a pleasant film about the status of dead people in a living society.
Everybody knows that unusual ideas are always welcomed in cinema.This is an observation which holds for French director Robin Campillo's film "Les Revenants"/"They came back".This is a socially relevant French film about old people who are given a new lease of life.Although this film talks about dead people,it cannot be classified as a zombie film.
Everybody knows that unusual ideas are always welcomed in cinema.This is an observation which holds for French director Robin Campillo's film "Les Revenants"/"They came back".This is a socially relevant French film about old people who are given a new lease of life.Although this film talks about dead people,it cannot be classified as a zombie film.
This is why "Les Revenants" is more a film about French society and its handling of issues related to old people's welfare and well being.Film director Robin Campillo and his screenwriter Brigitte Tijou have written a gripping scenario which continually asks what is to be done with dead people who have come to live with living people.This exceptionally sound narrative gives rise to a series of poignant observations about old people and their behavioral traits with surprisingly uncommon results.PS :Film critic Lalit Rao would like to thank a good friend Mr.Philippe Pham for having gifted a DVD of this film for detailed analysis..
This is why "Les Revenants" is more a film about French society and its handling of issues related to old people's welfare and well being.Film director Robin Campillo and his screenwriter Brigitte Tijou have written a gripping scenario which continually asks what is to be done with dead people who have come to live with living people.This exceptionally sound narrative gives rise to a series of poignant observations about old people and their behavioral traits with surprisingly uncommon results.PS :Film critic Lalit Rao would like to thank a good friend Mr.Philippe Pham for having gifted a DVD of this film for detailed analysis..
I think the point is to show the emotional impact of people you know returning from the dead.
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..
The film focuses on a French town and how the authorities work to integrate the "returners," most of whom are elderly, back into society.
All over the world, but in this film a small french town, the people who died over the last 10 years come back.
There's not much happening in terms of events and virtually no pay-offs watching this semblance of a story so very slowly unfold, either for the small things or the big overall mystery.Just so we're clear, this is nothing at all like Shaun of the Dead; this is a serious artsy drama, void of special effects, with a great concept (returning dead that are not zombies) that is totally and shamefully wasted.
To finish, all the big questions you think living people would ask their formerly defunct loved ones?
Some will claim an artistic charm that you or I are to dumb to appreciate, others will protest the film provides in insightful glimpse into the boundaries of the living and their recently dead relatives.
This film lacks the most basic of plots, reason, interest, debate or conversation.The living are more void of life than the dead.
Nothing.I implore you readers to spend the time you considered using to watch this film on something more interesting and productive and thought provoking doing something like boiling an egg.Please your sanity depends on it..
It's difficult to describe, but I'll try to, without giving away anything!This is a drama, about people that were dead coming back to "life" ...
That said, it was an interesting movie conceptually.As you well know, the dead returning in movies is nothing new.
In fact, in the town in this film, 13,000 returned from the dead.But, you will be disappointed in the fact that there is no blood or gore, no eating of brains.
This is just what the French do best - give us a film that makes us think for 103 minutes.Yes, they have come back, but they marched peacefully into town.
Actually, rather than a mystery movie it's more a philosophical approach towards the question of mortality and the emotional bonds people still hold strong to their deceased loved ones.
Like all fiction, it raises a big "What if?", this time even bigger than usual: What if the dead returned to live among us as if nothing - well, almost nothing, that is - happened?
We picked this movie because my mate likes zombie movies and we recently enjoyed Shaun of the Dead.Well, I certainly can't tell if I liked Les Revenants or not.
What if the dead returned to life and walked right out of the local cemetery?
I rented this movie expecting an "avant-zombie" film, and ended up with a healthy dose of philosophical inquiry.
The premise is the return of thousands of newly dead residents to a small French town, and the logistical problems involved with having to make room for them.
As the film approaches its end, those living members who have welcomed their dead relatives back are left empty and confused.
It's an interesting idea, and the movie starts off well enough, looking at how a town copes with the return of all of these people.
I don't want to give anything away, and I'll try not to spoil this, but I will say this movie goes more into the emotional aspect of the "what if" scenario the dead do come back to life.
Les Revenantes (They Came Back) is an artsy French film in which they, the recently deceased, come back.
Recently in this film spans ten years and 75% of the dead are over 60.
Mysteriously, the recent dead return and attempt to rejoin the living.