Les Revenants - Audience

 

Audience

• Released on 26 November 2012 on Canal+.
• UK release - 9 June 2013 on Channel 4
• 2 Series, 8 episodes each.
• Based on the French film 'They Came Back' (Les Revenants). Directed by Robin Campillo 2004.
• Created by Fabrice Gobert.

• Humans was more comercially successful because it was hosted in more countries.
• Les Revenants was distributed in less ways compared to Humans.
• It is in French, other language speaking countries may not want to watch with subtitles.
• Even with a French audience, the show is mysterious and very much based on hermenutic codes. Classical Hollywood narrative - the narrative of every media product should be understood by everyone who chooses to watch it.
• The first episode leaves the audience with many questions.

Reception theory (Hall) - How audiences recieve or negotiate media products.

        Negotiated reading - They like some aspects of the media text but perhaps not all of it.

• They enjoy other generic conventions of the show apart from mystery, such as horror and zombie films, where people come back to life.
• Some audiences enjoy violence.
• Relatability to the small village setting, characters and situations such as Le'na's character or the family-based setting.
• They recognise some of the actors.
• They think the characters are attractive.
• They know the artist/band's soundtrack.

Polysemy - When a media product has many meanings to an audience.

Ideology - The ideas and beliefs of the producer of a media product.

Hegemony - The norms and values of society.

Intertextuality - Where a media product makes reference to another media product.

• Victor, the child, 'creepy child', horror reference.

Scene: Julie and the bus stop and going home

• Long shot of Julie, further emphasises that she is alone. Hegemonic ideology, she is vulnerable. Hegemonically unattractive by beauty standards - baggy clothing, no makeup.
• Julie is not scared, not stereotypical of a woman in a horror film.
• She is working class, she lives in a run-down apartment and area that would be stereotypically rough. She doesn't own a car as she is taking public transport and works as a nurse/carer.
• Body language - bored and tired.
• Low key lighting. High contrast lighting, artificial, light and dark - binary opposition of Victor and Julie of life and death - symbolic.
• Long continuous shot, no movement and builds tension. Paradigmatic feature of the horror genre.
• Music - eerie, high pitch, suspense built in a coventional horror way. Non - diegetic music is purposefully eerie - low repetitive bass punctuated by sudden notes and changing.
• Diegetic atmospheric sound of cars and traffic.
• Victor's slow and subtle appearance in the background is a clear paradigmatic feature of the horror genre.
• Stereotypically, we don't see children wondering around alone at night, it is mysterious.
• Position of the audience - we know something the character doesn't know.
• Mysterious - the child coming from darkness behind, staring at her.
• Polysemy - some audiences may believe either the child is simply lost or horror convention - something bad will happen to her.
• Hermenutic code - Victor standing in the middle of field, why is he standing there? And he doesn't speak creating more mystery and doesn't conform to hegemonic ideology of boys being loud.