2freensel I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

fedor8 I suppose it was about time someone approached the whole "living dead" shtick from a different angle, i.e. from a non-cannibalistic, non-flesh-ripping, non-moaning-and- walking-slowly-while-longing- for-fresh-live-human-flesh perspective.While "Les Revenants" doesn't tackle the subject stupidly, I do fell as if they hadn't gone far enough, as if they'd not gone much further than scratching the surface. There is mention of the financing, the pensions, old jobs, fear, re-introduction to society and all that, but I felt there was so much more that could have been included. In fact, a TV series should have been made out of this (were it not for the simple fact that nearly all TV series turn out crap), simply due to the large scope of interesting dilemmas and questions that the premise offers.The realism was somewhat lacking at the outset, as regards how the world reacted to the dead coming back to life. There would have been massive panic, plenty of chaos, emotions would have run high all across the board. Not in this movie. Here the living seemed to react with as much apathy as the dead reacted to having been risen. Everyone looks downbeat and morose, like in some daft Bergman drama. So yes, this movie's Euro-roots are showing. You'd expect scenes of people who have recently departed relatives and friends to rush to morgues and "zombie camps" – but no. The zombies walk around as if not too happy they'd been brought back to life, while the living watch the processions of zombies with almost as little emotion. This, of course, makes no sense whatsoever. Even an annual city parade evokes far more emotion. Even a game of bingo in a retirement home evokes more reactions, fcrissakes. But I guess the director was so focused on making a serious zombie film, a "zombie drama" if you will, that he subdued the emotionalism. He overdid it. This is the one aspect of the movie where the writer miscalculated when it came to human behaviour and the psychological impact of such a staggering event.The zombies are even described as "full of energy, always wanting to move about", which is kind of ironic since they looked so sleepy and disinterested.Interestingly enough, the director chose not to delve into the question of why it happened. Perhaps because if he had done so he would have had to go down the obvious route of admitting that such an event could only have been sponsored by a divine being, i.e. the Bearded One. Furthermore, if God existed and suddenly raised the dead, that could only mean that it was some kind of test for mankind. (The Bible is full of God's endless testing of his luckless human subjects/guinea-pigs.) Maybe the director wanted to avoid the whole religious aspect of it which is why no explanation was given for the bizarre occurrence.I guess if anyone truly insisted on an explanation of why God had risen 70 million dead, one could always use the tried-and-true, self-serving, all-purpose explanation, a perennial favourite: "He moves in mysterious ways".But what I really sorely missed in TCB was not an explanation. I missed seeing Geraldine Pailhas's breasts. The director teases the (male) viewer time and time again, but always only from behind, in the dark or showing too little. In the end we don't get to see them at all. So Geraldine's breasts are much like the premise here; a lot of teasing but in the end nothing. Still, an interesting movie.

Film_critic_Lalit_Rao Everybody knows that unusual ideas are always welcomed in cinema.This is an observation which holds for French director Robin Campillo's film "Les Revenants"/"They came back".This is a socially relevant French film about old people who are given a new lease of life.Although this film talks about dead people,it cannot be classified as a zombie film. France is an economically strong European nation which is thinking hard about its old people."Les Revenants" is a socially relevant film which goads us to reflect on the plight of old people.It is not only France which has to think about aging population.Many economically developed nations would soon have large population of old people.It is for them to device strategies to make life worthwhile for their old age denizens. This is why "Les Revenants" is more a film about French society and its handling of issues related to old people's welfare and well being.Film director Robin Campillo and his screenwriter Brigitte Tijou have written a gripping scenario which continually asks what is to be done with dead people who have come to live with living people.This exceptionally sound narrative gives rise to a series of poignant observations about old people and their behavioral traits with surprisingly uncommon results.PS :Film critic Lalit Rao would like to thank a good friend Mr.Philippe Pham for having gifted a DVD of this film for detailed analysis.

jasonalexanderpark I rented this movie expecting an "avant-zombie" film, and ended up with a healthy dose of philosophical inquiry. The premise is the return of thousands of newly dead residents to a small French town, and the logistical problems involved with having to make room for them. Some return to their previous jobs, relationships, and families, while the strays are housed and studied in a barracks type hospital. Everything about the "zombies" seem to suggest that they are capable of living relatively normal lives, except for their strange activity at night, surplus of energy, and lower body temperatures. Everything except their complete lack of emotion and spontaneous thought. Instead they rely heavily on past memories and mimicked speech in order to function. As the film approaches its end, those living members who have welcomed their dead relatives back are left empty and confused. Eventually, the undead simply escape to tunnels, are shot down, or simply vanish, leaving the viewer, as well as the characters in the movie wanting for more. My feeling about this film is that it is trying to make the statement that "bodies" themselves are not us. Though "they came back" they really did not come back. That is- the soul or the essence that makes someone who they are is not simply the body, but something far more, and that never came back.

thundt Is there a law in France that says they have to churn out some number of French-language feature films per year? You know, to keep the language from being diluted and corrupted by evil Anglicisms like "le Zombie"? Because this would seem to be the product of such a law. It feels like a student movie project that got a lot of money thrown at it for nice, clean production and sound — but they forgot to hire an editor. Or maybe they kicked him out, because what he came up with was a half-hour short, instead of a 100-minute feature.This thing just goes on and on, with the zombie characters not doing much of anything at all, and the non-zombie characters about the same. There's not much plot, and not much action. I think the point is to show the emotional impact of people you know returning from the dead. More than once, it is said that "Your reaction may not be what you expect." Trouble is, there IS not much of a reaction. It's all very serious. No tearful reunions. No lovers' quarrels restarted. No revenge taken on one's murderer. Nothing! The living are about as affectless as the dead. Bury them all, and you wouldn't miss much.We saw this on DVD with subtitles. Nice picture; nice sound. Two out of three viewers fell asleep, and the third into a zombie-like trance. None of us felt better off having seen it. It wasn't offensive, nor silly; there was just not much there. "Revenant" means "returner", and we were happy to return this to the video store.