The zombie genre has proven wildly adaptable, transcending cultures and national borders. Plenty of efforts trade in action-horror mayhem, while others use a return of the (generally flesh-craving) undead as an inciting incident for grander social statements or inquiries pegged to societal breakdown. In terms of explorative value, though, the rush and any ongoing cataloging of grief tends to get the short end of the stick.
Deaths almost always mean something in zombie films, but there are usually other exigencies at play. Norwegian film is an outlier in this regard. It aims, in telling the story of several families thrown into chaos when their loved ones suddenly reanimate, to unpack the nature of sorrow and loss, and then being pulled suddenly back into anguish in a confusingly reconstituted form.
It’s a worthy idea, in theory. The end result, however, is a bit muddled—a would-be elegy that offers neither conventional catharsis nor quite enough mesmeric, meditative insight to justify its somberness. Handling The Undead Handling The Undead The directorial debut of Thea Hvistendahl, consists of three discrete narrative strands, set in present-day Oslo.
It’s over eight-and-a-half minutes until the first words in the film are spoken, but in that time viewers have absorbed an ocean of distance between Anna (Renate Reinsve) and her father Mahler (Bjørn Sundquist), who lives nearby. The root cause of this icy silence? Anna’s son Elias (Dennis Østby Ruud), recently decease.
