Okay, so it’s another film about the dead returning to life but I’ll wager that They Came Back is unlike any other zombie film you’re likely to have seen. When you think of the number of movies that are turned out on this subject you have to give credit to anyone who injects their story with a measure of originality; Romero and Fulci manage it, and Shaun of the Dead is a more recent Black Lagoon favourite. They Came Back offers us a stunningly simply plot twist, namely what would happen if the dead came back to life and DIDN’T try and kill the living? Considering the simplicity of the premise it’s surprising that it has never (to my knowledge) been tried before. When done well – as it is here – the results are infinitely more unsettling than dealing with the consequences of legions of the undead hunting down the living.
Robin Campillo approaches his subject with the kind of quiet consideration typical of French cinema. We’re led into his story beautifully, with the opening shots of the recently dead quietly exiting the cemetery followed by a very matter of fact explanation of what has happened. It’s clear from the off that the consequences of 60 million dead people suddenly reappearing present a whole series of problems, both practical and psychological. As one would expect, the sudden reappearance of a loved one who has passed on and been grieved for precipitates a huge moral dilemma for each of the main characters. Campillo chooses three people with whom to explore this huge societal dislocation, Rachel (whose partner returns having died four years earlier), Isham and Veronique (their young son comes back) and the town’s elderly mayor (who is reunited with his wife). The performances given by each are brilliantly effective and beautifully draw out their personal dilemmas. The fear that Rachel feels at seeing Mathieu again is at times painful to watch, discerning as we do her fear of suddenly reattaching her life to his after trying so hard to reconcile herself to his absence. This is further probed in the conflict between Isham and Veronique, with the former trying his hardest to reintegrate their son back into the family unit and at the same time fighting his wife, who is quicker to observe that those who have returned are but empty shells of their former selves.
As if it wasn’t enough to confront us with the debilitating emotional consequences of the return of those who players had learned painfully to live without, Campillo makes it even more difficult by asking us to imagine the practical effects. At first this might seem no more than the necessary plot foundations for his moral tale but in actual fact it is crucial in helping to propel the momentum of unease that the situation exudes. At first the authorities try and reintegrate the ‘returned’ back into their previous lives, to the extent that that the government is prepared to pay for people to be given their old jobs back. The resentment that this breeds amongst the living at having their routines disrupted so massively is subtly and effectively played out, with the authorities slowly coming to realise what an inconvenience their return is and preparing us for the natural conclusion that it would have been better if they’d stayed dead.
Campillo never makes it that easy for us though. Rachel might resent the fact that Mathieu has returned but this is also a person that she loved deeply and a doctor rightly points out that ‘anger, resentment, hope and fear’ are now synonymous. In the end it is the dead themselves who realise that their return – which they never seem to have hoped for – is causing nothing but trouble and that it is they who must bring tranquillity to the cocktail of emotions that they’ve stirred up. They Came Back is as captivating as it is troubling. It instantly engages you with some of the most profound questions that there are, and in doing so tells a story that is at the same time both wonderful and thoroughly dispiriting. Not bad for a ‘zombie’ film.