Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

The Returned: Season One Blu-ray Movie Review

Lazarus has nothing on these folks.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 4, 2014

Most of us who have lost a loved one—either through natural causes, or more tragic circumstances—have played the “if only” game. If only we had spent more time expressing our love. If only we had kept them from doing what may have contributed to their demise. If only there were some way to press a cosmic rewind button and do things differently. It seems to be part of human nature that the horrible finality of death brings these emotions to the forefront, a rather ironic situation considering the fact that most individuals also seem to have an almost genetic propensity for denial when it comes to their own particular mortality. While Christianity promises hope of eternal life and of course has its major festal day built around a resurrection, it’s not the only historical religion to have these elements, as those acquainted with the myth of Osiris can attest. On what might perhaps be termed the opposite end of the spectrum of human experience, cable television has jumped into the “resurrection business”, with so-called reality television efforts that offer first person accounts from those who supposedly passed over to “the other side”, only to return more or less intact, replete with stories of visions of light, beautiful flower filled fields and even the occasional sighting of Jesus or angels. The Returned, a fairly spooky French series which plays like a kind of slightly surreal cross between Twin Peaks and The X Files (with maybe just a hint or two of The Walking Dead thrown in for good measure), takes a much bolder approach to the whole resurrection issue, depicting an isolated French village which is suddenly overrun by reanimated folks, some of whom have been dead for decades. The show isn’t grisly like The Walking Dead, and instead tends to traffic in a sort of subliminal eeriness, as a large cast of characters who have various relationships with the “returned” attempt to come to grips with this startling new reality. The first season of The Returned is long on mood but awfully short on answers (something that is one of its most salient links to the David Lynch series), and it’s yet to be seen whether the series can maintain this level of spookiness while also delivering at least a few keys to help unlock manifold mysteries.

In what plays like a French version of The Sweet Hereafter, The Returned begins with a horrifying scene of a bus carrying a bunch of students on a field trip which suddenly (and seemingly inexplicably) plunges over a perilous mountain road full of switchbacks. We’ve quickly glimpsed one of the students on the bus, a pretty red haired girl named Camille (Yara Pilartz). The series then segues to what appears to be a support group for parents of the tragedy, and it slowly becomes obvious that several years have passed, as a memorial for the lost loved ones is about to be built after a long planning phase. In the meantime a rather Lynchian piece of enigmatic imagery has occurred: a pinned (and supposedly dead) bright blue butterfly has suddenly started fluttering beneath a glass case and manages to break free, shattering the glass in the process. Obviously, strange doin’s are in the offing.

That strangeness becomes manifest rather quickly when who should pop up over a nighttime mountain rise but Camille, evidently none the worse for wear, and just as evidently somewhat confused. The series then begins to show a number of other previously dead people matriculating back into the picturesque French village (one thing that isn’t instantly clear is that these previously dead folks are not all part of the same bus accident and in fact some of them have been dead a good, long while). Among these folks is a young man named Simon (Pierre Perrier), who is on the hunt for his former girlfriend Adèle (Clotilde Hesme) and a peculiar little boy who initially refuses to talk but who later just kind of takes the name of Victor (Swann Nambotin) after it’s what the woman who finds him calls him on the spur of the moment.

There are a number of other “returned”, all of whom have various backstories which are slowly divulged throughout the first season’s eight episodes. The series, though, is not merely limited to detailing the plight of these “newly alive” folks —it delves as much, if not more, into how their friends and relatives begin to respond to their sudden reappearance, and it’s here that The Returned finds some especially fertile emotional territory. The scenes with Camille reuniting with her family are a good case in point. Camille’s mother Claire (Anne Consigny) is obviously initially shocked, but just decides to go with the flow in fairly short order, while Claire’s estranged husband Jérôme (Frédéric Pierrot) can’t quite wrap his mind around what’s happened, and is further put out by the fact that Claire’s current boyfriend Pierre (Jean- François Sivadier), a kind of religious zealot, seems better equipped to handle the reappearances, even if he does so with a particularly Apocalyptic point of view. (There's a great reveal at the end of the first episode about Camille's family dynamic, especially with regard to her sister.)

The Returned is off to a great, spooky start, but I have to be honest in thinking that the series may suffer from what I call “Twin Peaks Syndrome”, i.e., a series which tips over into surreality so far that it can’t quite reestablish its footing. Much like David Lynch’s still iconic television creation, The Returned is stuffed to the gills with interesting, even bizarre, characters, and the first season draws some interesting interrelationships that may prove to be as labyrinthine as Lost turned out to be. The second season is probably going to tell the tale as to whether The Returned ends up reminding us more of Jack Shepherd or Laura Palmer.

The Returned: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Returned is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Music Box Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. While online technical data on the series is fairly slim, this appears to be a digitally shot series and it features a very sharp and well detailed image, despite some obvious color grading at times. There are some interesting stylistic choices employed here that look great on this Blu-ray set—a lot of the "contemporary" sequences are intentionally drained of color, with only pops of things like a bright purple skirt or Camille's rust-red hair causing a ripple in an otherwise fairly desaturated overall palette which exploits a kind of slate gray overall ambience. Some of the flashbacks, on the other hand, are brightly lit and are beautifully vivid, with a nice array of great primaries and appealing pastels. Fine detail is excellent in close-ups, though contrast is just a bit variable at times, perhaps exacerbated by the color grading choices. No overt compression artifacts were noticed in preparation for this review.

The Returned: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Returned lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is restrained, but it's nuanced. Dialogue is presented very cleanly and clearly, but there are some nice immersive effects which pay special attention to different ambient environments. A house fire provides some great crackling surround activity in an early episode, while an underground tunnel which recurs in several episodes features a well designed aural sense of claustrophobia. The track here isn't especially showy, but for those who like consistent, if low-key, immersion, this does the job quite effectively.

The Returned: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

While there are no on disc supplements included with this release, it's worth mentioning that this is very nicely packaged, with a trifold case housed in a slipcover, and a nicely illustrated (oversized) booklet inside that features a number of interesting essays and interviews, along with episode summaries.

The Returned: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The first season of The Returned features some unforgettable images: a pinned butterfly suddenly shattering its glass tomb, a hand streaking across a condensation filled window, an ever lowering reservoir that divulges more and more disturbing secrets as time goes by. These all point to a creative team that is long on style. While I want to hope against hope that the ultimate substance of The Returned matches this initially inimitable style, I don't want to "believe" (to reference yet another trickily mythologized series which started to devolve after a while, The X Files) until I've seen more of the second season. As it stands, though, things are off to a great, disturbing and even occasionally thought provoking start. Despite the absence of any on disc supplements, The Returned comes Recommended.