Les affamés (The Ravenous)
(Canada, 96
min.)
Written and directed by Robin Aubert
Starring:
Marc-André Grondin, Monia Chokri, Charlotte St-Martin, Micheline Lanctôt,
Brigitte Poupart, Marie-Ginette Guay, Robert Brouillette
Some call it home and others call it cottage country, but
what often draws one to the rural regions of Canada is the silence. The quiet
and leafy countryside can be an idyllic reminder of a way of life that seems
forgotten in the fast-paced and impersonal cities to which everyone flocks.
There’s something truly beautiful, however, about sitting back and watching the
sunset over grassy plains rather than through tightly packed condos, smelling pine-scented
air rather than carcinogenic smog, or being in a neighbourhood where people
wave rather than accuse randomly you of offending them. The sound of silence
rather than the din of traffic. This image of “Canada” doesn’t really fit the
cultural imagination anymore, but it hasn’t died away.
This suspenseful masterpiece of genre filmmaking is up there
with Bruce McDonald’s Pontypool and
David Cronenberg’s Rabid. Les affamés, also known as The Ravenous but only really in
association with its upcoming Netflix release in the USA, is minimalist auteur-driven
horror at its finest as Aubert (À l’origine
d’un cri) delivers a chilling tale about the abandonment of regional
communities. Don’t forget to breathe while diving into this fable of cultural
survival.
Leading the charge among the remaining humans is Bonin (C.R.A.Z.Y.’s Marc-André Grondin) who
patrols the anonymous rural area, shotgun in hand, with his friend Vézina
(Didier Lucien) looking for survivors, shelter, and sustenance. The pair
encounters a deadly trap at the woods that illustrates just how crafty and
sneaky these zombies are. Like the infected ghouls of Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later or the Olympic-level
sprinters of Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the
Dead remake, these zombies are not of the foot dragging midnight B-movie
variety. They run quickly and move stealthily. Sound triggers them and the
moment they see live flesh, they unleash a blood-curdling cry like a crow
signalling food to its flock.
Bonin encounters fellow survivors when the zombie brigade
changes the course of his direction. He befriends an elderly lesbian couple,
Pauline (Micheline Lanctôt) and Thérèse (Marie-Ginette Guay), who have a decent
survival camp set up replete with pickles and ammo, along with machete-toting,
suit-wearing working mother Céline (Brigitte Poupart), who is visibly
traumatised after having seen her entire family taken by the disease. These
three are very cautious with Bonin’s arrival, though, since he comes with two
others in tow: a little girl, Zoé (Charlotte St-Martin), who is harmless if a
liability, and Tania (Les amour
imaginaires’ Monia Chokri) who claims the bite mark on her arm is from a
dog. The zombies of Les affamés aren’t
unique in their ability to spread infection by sinking their teeth into mortal
flesh, but the speed with which their illness pollutes the body and the mind
bides its time and allows for ample suspense. All they can do is wait.
Grondin leads a strong ensemble that defies genre convention
with a mix of unlikely heroes. Chokri is effective as the jumpy and
shell-shocked Tania who finds her strength as they journey progresses, while
Poupart easily steals the show in the standout performance of the film that
brings a deadpan sense of humour to this bloody tale. She’s a stoic warrior,
funny as hell and fierce like a motherfucker. A Best Supporting Actress nominee
at this year’s Canadian Screen Awards, she deserves to win if anyone could see
the film. (Or be bothered to.)
The pack realizes that nobody is coming to help them as they
scour the area and take stock of the situation. The team notes with bitter
resignation that the few lives scattered around the farms and rural communities
won’t be worth saving compared to all the people concentrated in the city.
These are the forgotten people. The abandoned.
The emptiness of the rolling fields and lush woodland of
this rural setting is truly eerie. Aubert uses space, setting, and blocking
masterfully as the natural elements of the region become inextricably linked
with the dynamic of life and death, particularly through the calming use of greens. Trees create blind spots as zombies lurk in
the forests. Cameras roll at different paces with the humans as they rush
through the woods and create sightlines reminiscent of the velociraptors
hunting human prey in the fields of The
Lost World.
The use of natural light and fog is particularly spectacular with a dark twilight escape through the forest providing a breathless and heart-pounding escape as one watches the silhouettes of the survivors slip perilously by dark shadows that could house death. A late battle scene sees Céline attack the zombies like a warrior princess and her blood-soaked pantsuit provides the one spec of colour amidst the ghostly images of the mist in the dark woods. There are passages of Les affamés that could easily pass for being shot in black and white as the deathly pockets of the natural landscape come like shadows to swallow the few remaining Quebeckers whole.
The use of natural light and fog is particularly spectacular with a dark twilight escape through the forest providing a breathless and heart-pounding escape as one watches the silhouettes of the survivors slip perilously by dark shadows that could house death. A late battle scene sees Céline attack the zombies like a warrior princess and her blood-soaked pantsuit provides the one spec of colour amidst the ghostly images of the mist in the dark woods. There are passages of Les affamés that could easily pass for being shot in black and white as the deathly pockets of the natural landscape come like shadows to swallow the few remaining Quebeckers whole.
Sound is particularly essential in Les affamés as the slightest crack of a twig can alert the ghouls.
Extensive passages of the film play out in absolute silence and the barren
soundtrack is downright nerve-wracking. The exploding heads of the zombies are
admittedly squishy delights and the extensive make-up of the infected
impresses, but Les affamés is at its
most harrowing when it simply uses the abandoned people and their forgotten
land. Call it Faces Places with Fangs.
The zombies add to the film’s commentary on the urban/rural
divide and the adrenaline-pumping urgency for cultural survival as the monsters
protect their land and the humans, in turn, try to make sense of themselves as
dying breeds. As the survivors pass through their fallen neighbours in the
fields, they see them gathered around tale piles of objects amassed from
abandoned homes. The zombies take old crappy chairs and wardrobes with the same
predatory hunger with which they hunt humans. They flock to the pile of cobbled
material things like bugs dragged magnetically to a flame or contemporary
humanoids transfixed by devices and transformed by impersonal connection as
life passes them by.
Les affamés is now available on home video.