The Night Eats the World, 2018.
Directed by Dominque Rocher.
Starring Anders Danielsen Lie, Golshifteh Farahani, Denis Lavant, Sigrid Bouaziz and David Kammenos.
SYNOPSIS:
The morning after a party, a young man awakens to find Paris overrun with zombies.
The zombie genre is a decomposing corpse that has been done to death, promptly resurrected and then done to death some more. Most of the film’s in this genre follow the same pattern, with tales of survivors barricading themselves against the shuffling hordes of decomposing relatives before reaching the inevitable climax in which the hungry flesh eaters rip the living limb from limb in an orgy of gory mayhem.
However, that’s not the case for today’s entry, The Night Eats the World, a low-key English language French horror drama that might be one the most original zombie films I’ve seen in quite some time.
In contrast to other zombie films, which often feature scenes of gore-splattered mayhem and action, The Night Eats the World opts for a much slower, more contemplative approach. The entire runtime is spent with lone survivor Sam as he quickly acclimatises to his new environment and turns an apartment complex into a makeshift fortress, staying out of the reach of the zombies for most of the film.
The main threat to Sam aren’t the zombies, it’s loneliness. “Dead is the new norm. I’m the one who’s not normal”, he says in a sad admittance that he is all alone and that his life will never be the same again. The tone is bleak and suitably so, with the moments of lightness often resulting in more scenes of misery and loneliness, such as one particularly shocking and cruel late plot development that hits you like a punch in the guts.
The film is presented in a muted fashion that, at least in terms of zombie films, is refreshing as it mostly discards horror entirely in favour of building up character and atmosphere. The various shots of the battered, empty streets of Paris brought to mind memories of 28 Days Later, with The Night Eats the World almost acting as a possible homage to Danny Boyle’s modern horror classic. Even the musical score sounds not too dissimilar to John Murphy’s haunting music for 28 Days, with Night’s choir heavy score sounding like it could easily have been lifted from Boyle’s film.
Instead of scenes of extended action or gore, Night is littered with quiet character-building moments of heartfelt poignancy. Among the more poignant moments comes when the corpses of an elderly couple in the flat below Sam begin to decompose. After briefly contemplating tossing the bodies into the street for the zombies, Sam instead decides to zip them up inside sleeping bags and place them together on their bed alongside their belongings and a personal photograph, creating a kind of makeshift memorial for the couple. Or, in my favourite scene, he uses a variety of makeshift instruments to create a short musical sequence that is honestly kind of brilliant.
Although a slower and quieter zombie film, that’s not to say The Night Eats the World is without its tense moments. A short nightmare in which Sam imagines his room is being broken into is a brilliant moment of sheer terror, the thumping sounds of the undead charging down the halls of his hideout being genuinely nerve-shredding. And after the slow burn of much of the runtime, the climax is a classic “zombies break in” style finale as Sam fights for survival against a horde of hungry foes. Points also go to the film for featuring what might be the most original and dangerously stupid means of escaping a zombie-infested building.
At the heart of The Night Eats the World is the performance of Anders Danielsen Lie as Sam, the Norwegian actor taking on the daunting task of carrying the film almost entirely alone. While not the most likeable character, Lie nails the role, expertly portraying the character’s transformation from a bitter ex and scared survivor into a seasoned survivalist fighting a losing battle against loneliness. A moment that stood out to me comes early in the film as Sam listens to voice mails of dead party guests, with Lie brilliantly capturing the heartbreak of his situation with a defeated, tearful silence.
The pace is slow and delicate, taking its time, allowing the viewer to soak up the atmosphere and, like Sam, become used to the isolation and deafening silence. This approach both helps and hinders the film. It offers a different experience from the usual zombie fest, its long quiet stretches making for a thought-provoking introspective character piece. However, it does leave the film without much going on, with these long stretches of very little happening, sometimes leaving you glancing at your watch.
While it is slow and lacks the usual gory chaos we might expect from a zombie film, the strong performance of Anders Danielsen Lie and a heavily introspective approach mark The Night Eats the World as among the more innovative and fresh takes on the rotting corpse of the zombie sub-genre.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Graeme Robertson
