They came back. They sure did, all of them. However the two hours you spend watching this film will not come back. Never ever come back. Some will claim an artistic charm that you or I are to dumb to appreciate, others will protest the film provides in insightful glimpse into the boundaries of the living and their recently dead relatives. Both would be wrong. This film lacks the most basic of plots, reason, interest, debate or conversation.The living are more void of life than the dead. Questions are posed simply for the sake of posing a question. There is no point, there is no provocation. Nothing.I implore you readers to spend the time you considered using to watch this film on something more interesting and productive and thought provoking doing something like boiling an egg.Please your sanity depends on it.

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.

If you like zombies, then you must certainly find 70 million of them to be a real delight. In fact, in the town in this film, 13,000 returned from the dead.But, you will be disappointed in the fact that there is no blood or gore, no eating of brains. This is just what the French do best - give us a film that makes us think for 103 minutes.Yes, they have come back, but they marched peacefully into town. They looked as if they were just buried yesterday, even though some had bee gone for 10 years. Mostly old, there were some infants and in one of the three families featured, a six-year-old.It is curious that the French do not get upset; they proceed to develop plans to temporarily resettle the zombies while they learn their identities and check them out medically. They, of course, make plans to repatriate them to their families and jobs and make provisions for assistance - most are over 60, as you would expect.But, the film focuses on three families: one who lost a six-year-old four years ago, one whose wife lost her husband, and one elderly couple reunited. All those questions of how you deal with loved ones returning after you have already grieved keep popping through your mind. Sometimes, in the case of the parents and child, there are different responses.The film does not explore why they came back, and why they suddenly leave again. It is more concerned with how people deal with death. It is a thoughtful film that really keeps your attention, even though some complain about its slowness. Well, of course it is slow, it is a film about zombies.

When I give "1" to a movie, it means it's an execrable one and I have no intention to waste any more time with it! Just know that the dead are coming back. The action is originally located in a small French town. Thus, leaving the "horror" side, it concentrates on the psychological & social effects on the alive! Problem: when the alive lack even more emotions than the dead, you simply got nothing: no dialogues, no interaction, no story.... Geraldine Pailhas confesses it on the making-of: " If I live this situation for real, I would laugh, cry, speak, stay silent, be happy & be terrified, but HERE, the director wanted no feelings".So, as I said in another review, sometimes the dead should never come back !!!!