Les affamés (2017)

Directed by: Robin Aubert | 96 minutes | drama, horror | Actors: Marc-André Grondin, Monia Chokri, Charlotte St-Martin, Micheline Lanctôt, Marie-Ginette Guay, Brigitte Poupart, Édouard Tremblay-Grenier, Luc Proulx, Didier Lucien, Robert Brouillette, Martin Héroux, Patrick Hivon

The opening shot of ‘Les affamés’ shows a beautiful moody scene. A balding meadow. A blanket of fog. A chair balancing on the edge of sight. A cold soundlessness as chaperone. Immediately in the next shot, that silence is abruptly interrupted by the roar of a car race. A noise so loud that the race spectators don’t notice that zombies have entered the surrounding terrain. The silence seems to have come to an end for good.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Canadian ‘Les affamés’ (the hungry) understands perfectly that a zombie film is not mainly about zombies. The undead, in keeping with the conventions of the genre, stand for something greater. The decline of society, the endless individualism of contemporary humanity or, as in ‘Les affameś’, they show how in these hasty times people no longer have room for reflection, vulnerability and sadness. In other words, how man no longer allows silence in life.

The zombies are slowly taking over the civilized world in ‘Les affamés’. The survivors retreat to the woods. Places of serene silence and reflection. Far from the sins of the past. Their thoughts on what they left behind. What does it do to someone when you have to shoot your loved ones, consumed by the zombie virus? When you have to bury a dead relative? How do you deal with the past that no longer exists?

Meanwhile, the zombies continue to hunt insatiably. Silences alternate with the deafening shrieks of the undead. There is no escaping the bloodshed in the forests either. The ranks of the living are rapidly dwindling. Their former vices forever unpurified.

The special effects associated with that inevitable bloodshed seem rather b-movie-like, but clever enough that doesn’t matter at all. It all adds to the playful cinematography of the film. The use of frames ensures, for example, that the tension between what can be seen on screen and what takes place off-screen is effectively exploited. The light-dark contrast also increases tension, certainly because it is the living main characters who regularly find themselves in that twilight zone. Together with the previously mentioned play with sound, this results in a surprisingly layered, sincere and lovingly made film. Although ‘Les Affamés’ isn’t particularly original, how could it be otherwise in a subgenre that has so overrun the horror market over the last decade, that enthusiasm makes the film well worth watching.