They Came Back (Les Revenants)

(2004) ** 1/2

What do you do when your family, friends, and fellow townspeople come back from the dead? Normally, you kill them to prevent them from eating your brains. But what do you do if they look exactly as they did before they died and they just want to resume their lives?

In They Came Back, the town holds meetings discussing the appropriate course of action. They decide to set up buildings where the walking dead await being claimed by their loved ones; though, as you can imagine, some people don’t want to claim them because frankly it’s pretty freaky, plus, though not discussed, I’m sure there were a few bad seeds that the families would have preferred had stayed deceased. While at these facilities the undead are put through a series of tests that shows they are slower mentally, but physically restless. Those who are claimed resume their lives. They go back to their former jobs despite the fact that their slow mental capacity hinders their performance. This is certainly an issue, but as the townspeople discuss, what else should they do with them. Those who are not claimed live in the facilities but their restlessness keeps them awake most nights and sometimes the guards have to shoot them with tranquilizers.

There are a few characters and their families that emerge as the main focus. There is the married couple that had lost their young son, the middle aged woman and her husband that had passed, and the old widow who had grieved the loss of his life long relationship with his wife. On one hand, they are ecstatic to have them back, but on the other, it’s a bit unsettling. It’s quite an adjustment to grieve for someone and then have him or her suddenly return to you one day with no explanation, not to mention, they are not exactly themselves and their restlessness is a source of trouble.

What can I say about this film. Intriguing concept, raises interesting questions, and successfully explores the grieving process; however, in the end it just doesn’t do it for me. It moves a bit slower than I would like. There is not even a spot of gore. Though, I could be okay with these two aspects if it weren’t missing something really major for me, and that is an explanation. I am by no means someone who needs everything described, I actually typically prefer the abstract, but I think the construction of this film called for more information, either that or it should have had a different ending. I’m not sure which would be preferable, I just know that the movie ended and I needed more, and either an explanation for why the dead suddenly returned or a different conclusion probably would have satisfied me.