Handling the Undead: Norwegian Zombie Film is Light on Zombies but Big On Grief
By Karen Gordon
Rating: B+
It’s not wrong to say that Handling the Undead is a zombie movie: the dead do awaken.
But it’s far from conventional. There aren’t zombies rampaging through Norwegian director Thea Hvistendahl’s quiet film. Instead, the spare, slow-paced, thoughtful film is an affecting story about coping with grief.
It’s based on the eponymous novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who co-wrote the script with Hvistendahl. His debut vampire novel Let the Right One In is so successful that it’s become its own little industry, and adapted for the big screen twice — notably 2008’s fantastic Swedish film Let the Right One In. It’s also been adapted for the stage, a TV series, and a comic book. Lindqvist has a knack for a fresh, brainier take on conventional horror.
As well, Handling the Undead boasts a superb cast, including Bjørn Sundquist, one of Norway’s most popular actors, and two of Norway’s best-known, younger generation actors: Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielson Lie, who co-starred in the Oscar-nominated The Worst Person In The World. It won Reinsve best actress at the Cannes Film Festival.
Set in Oslo, the film features three families, unknown to each other, all of whom are dealing with very recent deaths of a family member.
Anna (Reinsve) is a single mother who works a solitary overnight shift in a kitchen. She is close to her father Mahler (Sundquist), and the two are mourning the loss of her young son, his grandson. David (Danielsen Lie), an aspiring stand-up comedian, lives with his wife Eva (Bahar Pars) and their two kids. Tora (Bente Børsum) has just come from the funeral chapel saying goodbye to her wife, Elisabet (Olga Damani).
That night, there is an unexplained electromagnetic event that causes car alarm systems to sound, and a major power outage. After that, strange things happen.
Mahler is at the grave of his grandson, so recently buried that the earth hasn’t been leveled yet. He hears knocking sounds from inside the grave and digs through the fresh soil, finding his grandson weak, but seemingly alive, and brings him home. By the time Anna gets home from her shift, she discovers her son before he can warn her.
David gets a call to come to the hospital where his wife Eva has been in an accident and died on the table. But as he stands at her bedside she moves and opens her eyes. Børsum’s character is awakened by sounds in the house and finds Elisabet in the kitchen.
None of the returned people are back to their old selves. They are mostly silent, detached, like people in a waking coma — neither here nor there, and seemingly confused.
Everyone handles grief in their own way, but for a lot of characters the reality of loss is so new that they have withdrawn into themselves. The reappearance of their seemly fragile and vulnerable recently deceased loved ones requires the characters to act to take care of them. It’s a complicated emotional situation, moving from grief to uncertainty about the improbability of what’s happening — and what they’re experiencing — to hands-on caretaking of these beloved semi-strangers.
Hvistendahl handles the film with deliberate restraint. Nothing is rushed. The camera often watches the characters from a distance. There isn’t a lot of dialogue. She avoids most of the horror movie tropes; no soundtrack raising the tension to a crescendo, and no backstories or explanations.
The film feels quite natural, with the director leaving it to her actors to convey their emotional state, often wordlessly, and her cast delivers beautifully.
These are important creative choices, albeit controversial ones. With a running time of about 90 minutes and with a slow-moving plot, the film has inspired some derision. But the choices she’s made are deliberate and effective.
In a conventional zombie movie, reactions are heightened, which can detach us from the very emotions that Hvistendahl seems to be aiming at. By eliminating the predictable carnival-ride ups and downs of the usual zombie movies, Hvistendahl goes deeper into the archetype of what the undead represent and gives us something more profound.
Dealing with grief and loss are dreadfully difficult, but inevitable parts of life. Handling the Undead gently puts us into the world of characters trying to work through the shock, the numbness and helplessness of what happens when we lose a loved one.
It’s a tough subject, which no doubt accounts for the limited theatrical release. But Hvistendahl’s measured approach finds a way to the subject with grace.
Handling the Undead. Directed by Thea Hvistendahl. Written by Thea Hvistendahl and John Ajvide Lindqvist. Starring Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Bjørn Sundquist, Bahar Pars, Bente Børsum, and lga Damai. In theatres May 31 in Toronto (The Carlton), Montreal (Cinema du Parc), and June 2 in Vancouver (The Rio Theatre).