Les Revenants

They came back! And they seem more of a burden than a relief to any of their relatives!

When I read the description in the Programme Book, I thought it sounded like a quirky little film about life and death. The picture showed what appeared to be pajama-clad (this how the dead are prepped for burial in France?) group of people walking en mass out of a graveyard. Even the reviews suggested that this would be a lighthearted, playful film. But man, was it anything but.

And okay, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps it's to the director's credit that he fought the impulse to make a lighthearted film that in Hollywood, results in 'feel good movies' that feature the words 'Starring Jim Carrey' and 'in a film by Ron Howard' in the opening credits and instead opted for a more sober exercise on the effect death has on the living.

There's something to be said when a film can create such a heavy atmosphere that you almost feel like you're sinking in your seat while watching it. There were times when the tone was so sombre, the characters in such pain, that I thought, 'Wait, this must be intended as a joke or a satire and I'm just not getting it'. So I'd look for clues, some type of over-the-top dialogue or some outlandish performance that would indicate that yeah, this is meant to be too serious on purpose. But no, the mayor would try in vain to get any type of response from his wife or the couple who'd lost a child would take their returned son to the park and stare forelornly as he'd indifferently ride various playground equipment and it just kept getting heavier and heavier.

It's not that I have a problem with watching misery unfold onscreen; if there's no conflict then it's not going to be much of a movie. It's just that I found it hard to find any sympathy for any of the characters (except perhaps the dead husband, when he's relegated from his white collar job to a blue collar job just for like, being a creepy zombie which is like so unfair but whatever...) when they only seemed to muster one emotion. An interesting film but not sure who I'd recommend it to.