THE RETURNED MEDIA LANGUAGE

Fragmented Narrative

In The Returned the narrative is fragmented, and there are flashbacks to the bus crash at the beginning and end of the episode.

The audience are shown Victor’s part in the crash, allowing the audience to anticipate how the narrative may develop in future episodes.

Binary Oppositions

e.g. Light vs Dark, Illusion vs Reality, Living vs Dead, Past vs Present, Truth vs Perception of truth

The resolving of some of these binary oppositions within the story may have an ideological significance:

Grief - the characters never overcome grief, the confusion between living and dead doesn't allow them to, this suggests that grief is never resolved

Unease - the confusion between illusion and reality creates a sense of unease and disrupts the familiar

Conventional Plot situations:

1. Arrival of the strange

2. Cherubic child

3. Apocolyptic weather

4. Unexplained events

5. Slow opening of doors to reveal what is on the other side

6. Conversations about what cannot be explained

7. Flickering of lights to connote a strange event

Narrative Strands

There are several complex, enigmatic narrative strands which will be interwoven across the episodes including:

• The focus on each of the returned in future episodes. In the first, the focus is on Camille, the dam, the quest for truth and the impact of the returned on the community of the living and the dead.

Stock Characters

Include:

• A ‘creepy’ child

• The undead

• The maternal

• Nurturing characters

• Victims

• Representations of authority

Often pairing of characters are binary oppositions, and their relationships contribute to the tensions within the narrative e.g. Julie and Victor

Setting and Location

The setting is on the edges of a ski resort where the houses are isolated, the roads are long and empty and everything is surrounded in mist and darkness - typical of the genre.

Within individual houses, there is a sense of claustrophobia, reinforced by the darkness and the framing.

Iconography

Windows and mirrors feature in this episode, as ways of replicating the world but also fabricating reality.

Characters are often viewed through windows, as if being watched - adding to the sense of unease - or look at themselves in mirrors as if trying to see the truth

e.g. Jerome and Claire look in disbelief at Camille through the window.

Narrative Structure

1. The EQUILIBRIUM in The Returned is presented in the bereaved community attempting to adjust to the deaths of their loved one.

2. The DISRUPTION to this equilibrium is the return of the dead. Camille is accepted by her family, but there is further tragedy with M and Mme Costa and grief for Adele with the unbelievable return of Simon.

3. The RECOGNITION of that the equilibrium has been disrupted is evident in the tragic consequences - the suicide of M Costa and natural events (the receding of the reservoir waters)

4. As this is an episodic drama, there would NOT be a RESOLUTION at the end of the first episode, instead there is a CLIFFHANGER as the narrative returns to the initial crash and Victor is seen as the cause.

Why is The Returned harder to categorise?

The Returned is harder to categorise due to its hybridity. The Returned includes references to the ZOMBIE genre as the characters are ‘undead’ and also to FANTASY, but it is set amongst families in a domestic drama setting.

Its shares some conventions with the SCI-SI genre in that it focuses on extraordinary events outside the realm of reality.

How does The Returned demonstrate difference in its genre?

The Returned demonstrates difference in that it focuses less on the gore and horror of more typical zombie dramas, and more on the psychological impact on the community of the loss and then the return of the children

How are the returning children unconventional to the genre?

The children who return are not classic zombie in their appearance or behaviour, they outwardly appear ‘normal’ and are attempting to return to the life they left.

Poetic Realism

In its style and aesthetics, the programme borrows from the 1930s French cinematic tradition of Poetic Realism. The visual style is minimalistic but lyrically constructed. The tone echoes with a sense of doom and the characters are on the edge of society, with an isolated setting, living in their grief. The focus is on the nature of the human condition and what it means to be happy.

How does the programme construct a genre marked with repetition and difference? And why is this important?

Subverting and challenge conventions by introducing more unique elements (as with The Returned’s characters, narrative and aesthetic) can ensure commercial success.

VISUAL AND AUDIO CODES

Clothing:

• The normal, everyday clothing of both the living and the dead challenges the more typical codes and conventions of the genre and establishes the idea of the uncanny within the realistic.

VISUAL AND AUDIO CODES

Gesture and Expression:

• Claire’s shocked and confused expression when she sees Camille contrast with Camille’s apparent normality - the audience too are confused and empathise with Claire.

• Julie’s gesture in holding Victor’s hand and taking him into her home has intertextual references to the vampire genre (being allowed to cross the threshold).