Program Note
Three families have lost their loved ones. And on a hot summer day in Oslo, the dead return as undead. They don't look like how their families remember them. But just having them back is enough. If they can just continue their old routines—brushing their hair, feeding them—it doesn't matter if they're zombies. Based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, author of Let the Right One In (2004), Thea Hvistendahl's debut film Handling the Undead tells the story of people who, instead of fighting against zombies, choose to embrace and live with them. Although it might initially seem like a smart twist on the zombie genre, the film keenly observes the characters who must face loss, the resulting grief, and the confusion brought by the return of the dead to life through a cold, distanced lenz. Each character, rarely showing their emotions, hides a tangled web of feelings as they move towards an inevitable catastrophe and makes this drama of the living, the dead, and those in between is brutal, sorrowful, and even beautiful. (Jin PARK)