Zombie Command

They Came Back (Les Reventants) is a 2004 French zombie film directed by Robin Campillo. I use the term ‘zombie’ loosely. First, let me start with the movie summary from Netflix that whet my appetite:

A group of zombies walk out of their graves and head back home in this intriguing French film directed by Robin Campillo. Relatives of the undead aren’t quite sure what to do with their returning loved ones, and neither is the government — so the zombies are placed in emergency housing while authorities figure out what their role in society will be. Meanwhile, the ghouls are secretly going around conducting a little business of their own.

Sounds like an interesting movie, right? Well, its not exactly your run-of-the-mill zombie flick. If I had bothered to read the user reviews, I would have caught on to this earlier, however, I didn’t read them; the idea of French zombies in emergency housing was enough for me. All that being said, I did enjoy this movie and found it to be quite thought provoking. But you’d be wise to note that these are not your stereotypical shambling undead; they’re a little different.

The movie wastes no time in releasing the undead hordes. The first scene is a wide shot of a cemetery, with hundreds of the living dead streaming out from the front gates. They are dressed pristinely, with very light, crisp colors, mostly off-shades of white. My guess is this was done for a stark, dramatic impact at the beginning of the film and to keep the viewer from confusing who is living and who is a zombie. (Or perhaps the French bury their dead in white? You tell me.) They are not rotting, they are not moaning and they are not shambling. Its very hard to distinguish the undead from the living by physical appearance alone. The only immediate signs that they are undead is a look that could be viewed as either dazed or completely calm. There are no real emotions that play across their faces.

The return lasts for two hours, at which point the undead inexplicably cease rising. The ones who have risen are those that have died within the last 10 years and are mostly senior citizens. They still retain memory of their previous lives and have the ability to communicate and participate in regular physical activities. An important distinction between these zombies and the ones you typically expect: they do not eat the living. They eat regular food and drink just like the living. In fact, aside from initially being a little slow in movement, they appear just like everyone else. They do have a slightly lower body temperature, which is detectable using thermoscanners. Weather balloons with thermoscanning cameras are set up above the cities in order to track the ‘migratory patterns’ of the undead.

It is estimated that approximately 70 million of the previously deceased have returned worldwide. In order to accommodate the new (old?) citizens, shelters are set up to house them and to help reunite them with their families. There is a particular scene that stuck out for me, where a young woman is presented with her undead baby. You can see that she’s disbelieving and seems unsure what to do. I imagine a mother who has lost her child would pray for the return of that baby. And now here she is, her prayers have been answered, but what does it mean and how does she cope? Her reaction appears not uncommon as people seem divided about how to feel. Some seem incredibly excited about the return of their loved ones while others are wary and not immediately inclined to be reunited with their departed family members.

The zombies are considered to have the same rights as when they were among the living, including the right to earn a living. This brings about an interesting dilemma: what do you do with 70 million unemployed zombies? Sure, a great deal of them were senior citizens, so they won’t need jobs, but what about their pensions, will those be reinstated? And something else to consider: will they ever ‘die’ again or will anyone else ever die again? If not, then when do those monies stop? And something else that I wondered about: life insurance. Chew on the impact to that industry for a bit.

Immediately after their return, the undead were somewhat slow and took a little while to relearn basic functions and abilities, but those returned eventually. For those that returned to work, they seemed to adjust and learn quicker. It is proposed that they undead are able to function due something called the Echo & Memory Theory. Its not that they are cognitively the same as they were that they are able to function, but more that their brains remember the abilities and use personal memories in order to understand how to react in a given situation and in a given environment. They appear no longer capable of crafting new ideas. Or can they….?

If you plan to see the movie, then don’t expand the spoilers below as I reveal some of the ending.

The thermoscanning cameras record that the undead do not sleep and seem to meet up regularly each night, at which point, things get a little more interesting. They also seem impervious to infection and appear to be in better health than the living. So what does all this mean? Well, let’s just say that midnight meetings of the super-healthy undead are never a good thing. Past that interesting plot point, things start to get a little confusing.

Without giving away exactly the result of the undead meetings, I will reveal that the ‘climax’ of the movie made absolutely zero sense to me. It was interesting and it was suspenseful, but it was confusing. It made no sense to me why the dead would return from the grave to do what they did. It made no sense to me that they did it in the way that they did. Did I mention that it made no sense?

I can’t say anything more about this part of the movie without giving away the ending, so instead, I’m going to move into some things that occurred to me during the movie. I mentioned that it was a thought provoking film, and indeed, They Came Back made me think of a few logistics that would be a little askew should the dead come back from the grave. First, recall the baby that I mentioned in the beginning of this review: how did it get out of the graveyard? When we first encounter the undead leaving the cemetery, they are all walking straight out, not interacting with each other, not helping each other, no one is helping them, so how did the baby manage to get to a place where it was rounded up to be reunited with its mother? Another thing that occurred to me was that if undead can talk, how swiftly did the police track down those that were murdered and question them about who committed the crime? I imagine that if one thought a person they planned to murder might come from back from the dead, seeing as that everyone else already has, one might not be so quick to kill. The undead came out of the cemetery pristine and looking no worse for the wear. Plus, when in the emergency shelters, they are said to be in better health than expected, which I take to mean blood is flowing and pumping through the veins, otherwise, doctors would have certainly made note of that in their rounds. So does this mean that the embalming process reversed itself somehow? And what about those who were killed by traumatic events like a car wreck? Where were the walking wounded? Then again, I guess I could just realize that the dead just came back and started walking around, so logical explanations shouldn’t really be expected.

They Came Back, while not what I was initially expecting, turned out to be a good movie and worth the time to watch it. For those who want the standard zombie movie or prefer to have their undead eating human flesh, this movie is not for you. For those that enjoy stepping outside of the norm with their zombie films, you just may enjoy the questions that this movie will inspire.