****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
The french tv series based on this film is one of my favorite fictional works in any medium. So, I was prepared to be very disappointed. And if you are looking for the genesis of the series, you're not going to find much beyond the premise and a few cinematic moments (more in the spoilers section).However, this movie stands on its own as a haunting, muted depiction of how we behave when our loved ones betray our expectations. This emotional undercurrent is layered with mythic allusions, especially in the three primary plots. The cinematography deliberately creates distance and then broaches it, alternating darkness and/or black and white film with vibrant color. The ending - I think - is meant to be open to interpretation; however, I also believe that it has something to say about the choices we all make regarding our loved ones and the choices we make about how much uncertainty we are willing to live with. I want to watch this movie again.SPOILERS FOLLOW - SCROLL DOWN:************Les Revenants treats the subject of meetings - work meetings, community meetings, etc. - fairly extensively. The living are having meetings about the returned. The returned are having meetings about? What? It must be something scary, right? Especially since over the course of the film, the livings' meetings go from how to reintegrate the returned into the community to - ultimately - controlling, segregating, and various other ways we treat the ones we "other." Much of what is in the living's meetings is somewhat controversial if you think about it - the jokes about Big Brother (and only about the living - not about the returned, who begin the film with privacy rights and anti-discrimination protections but lose them as their differences become more well-known).There is also some reference to the pharmaceutical industry, which becomes even more ominous if one stops to consider how they know what they know about a drug's effects on the returned. How was it tested? On whom? Who gave permission? And I think there is definitely a message in the end about which population proves more dangerous. And what that message is depends on your perspective.Ultimately, while the tv series seems, to me, to be about the deeply personal ways humans handle grief, the film examines modern society and the extent to which we are willing to protect and accept people who are different. Especially when they are so different that we can't quite figure them out. But, like the series (or rather, foreshadowing the series), the film also depicts three returned people and their relationships with the people closest to them, highlighting the very different ways in which the living process the return of their loved ones. In those relationships, you can see where the stories of Simon and Adele and Camille and Victor got their starts. There are also a couple of exterior shots that inform some of the iconic moments of the series. And the tunnels. There are the tunnels. Much to think about.END SPOILERS SCROLL DOWN************I watched this movie on a SHUDDER subscription (after having it on my watchlist for years), but I am going to purchase it. It is a slow-moving film (which may itself be a metaphor), so it is not for everyone - especially if you are looking for Walking Dead style zombie-slaying - but if you want is a combination of thoughtful social commentary, gorgeous scenery, and love stories that aren't really date night material, this is your movie.
