WHAT'S LEFT OF US

(A.k.a. ZOMBIE DESERT; THE DESERT; EL DESIERTO)

The world is eerily quiet. Colour schemes are drab and unwelcoming. The streets are barren, save for a bunker-like residence populated by three young adults - Axel (Lautaro Delgado), Jonathan (William Prociuk) and Ana (Victoria Almeida). Other than them, the only life we see in there comes from the flies that buzz around the place incessantly.

Ana has rigged up a video camera and microphone in one of the building's rooms, where each of them can retire at will and record their innermost thoughts as a documentary form of therapy. They are, after all, at the mercy of each other: prisoners in their bricks-and-mortar confines.

At all other times, the threesome try their best to while away their time without jumping down each other's throats. It's not always easy; such is the boredom that comes with being perpetually cooped up in a place with no television or even music for light relief.

Outside, we gradually realise, the apocalypse has arrived. The group must only exit their dwelling for essential reasons, and even then must only move around in pairs or together as a threesome. The rest of the world, it would seem, are zombified.

Hmm. The scenario may sound familiar, but WHAT'S LEFT OF US earns kudos for consciously proffering something different from the start. The emphasis here is not on the living dead - who are relegated to little more than a macabre metaphor, and rarely seen until a key plot device brings one of their faction into the house - but on the unsettling love triangle which develops between our subtly discontent trio.

Axel, you see, starts watching the old videos that Ana has recorded. It's part of his infatuation with her, which also involves watching her as she sleeps fully nude. As he watches evidence of her sexual intimacy with Jonathan, he begins to slowly seethe inside. For a while, having Jonathan tattoo parts of his body intermittently between bouts of games such as wink-bingo and Truth or Dare help exorcise his frustrations. But that won't work forever.

The unspoken rivalries, the quiet moments of perplexed contemplation, and the simmering atmosphere of internal paranoia are what make WHAT'S LEFT OF US so disquieting. That zombies apparently lurk outside is a minor thing, and almost a distraction from the far more riveting drama occurring indoors.

Performances are impeccable. Almeida pitches her role just right: she is at equal turns sexy, aloof, manipulative and arrogant. Delgado plays the brooding underdog with a keen subtlety that keeps his character's next actions unpredictable. This isn't about explosive set-pieces or ranted, sweary dialogue: imagine Michael Haneke or Yorgos Lanthimos directed a post-apocalyptic undead film and you're probably not far off what's going on here.

Midway through the film, the trio - already struggling to maintain a balance of friendship within their forcibly minute world - capture a zombie and chain it up in their abode. Why? For a bet. To stave off boredom for a while. They each become fascinated with the attractive young male ghoul - which Ana names Pythagoras (Lucas Lagre) - and visit it on separate occasions to do things as mundane as rifle through its wallet, spray-paint its hair and chin to see what it would look like as a hipster, and so on.

While these actions may sound trite, writer-director Christoph Behl handles them as anything but. There is very little humour in WHAT'S LEFT OF US. It is a dour, pessimistic film; not only is the world largely at an end, but the only living souls we're privy to are antagonistic, confused and complex individuals who allow tedium to manifest itself in the form of insidious resentments. As mentioned earlier, the zombie becomes a metaphor for their condition. All seems lost when, at one point, a fellow survivor approaches their hideout - only to be warned away by gunshots fired by Jonathan. Perhaps it's because he's aware that their current stock of provisions will only last another couple of weeks. Perhaps it's because this set-up is as perfect as it can be in such a fucked-up situation, and he doesn't want to change things unduly.

WHAT'S LEFT OF US shouldn't be approached as a zombie film. That's pretty important to point out. If you go into this expecting flesh-eating and undead brains being blown out every ten minutes or so, you're going to be severely disappointed. It's a much more reflective, sobering film than that: interested in human foibles and how relationships make and break themselves. Characters are provocatively formed; the pace is very carefully modulated in a successful bid to create an atmosphere of underlying tension and claustrophobia.

It could be argued that the film is slow. But I found it absorbing. You have to be open to allowing the scenario and characters to engage you, I suppose. There's certainly nothing on a technical level to dissuade that: alongside the performances, the set design is spot on, the pacing is perfect, the dialogue is true and probing, the style is free from cliché.

I definitely recommend WHAT'S LEFT OF US. It's not often we see a genre film from Argentina but this is proof positive that they can do with visual flair and a provocative, original take on tried-and-tested themes.

We were sent an early test screener disc here at SGM, which presented the film in an extremely nice-looking 16x9 widescreen (1.85:1) transfer with Spanish 2.0 audio and easily readable burned-in English subtitles. I don't know if this is wholly indicative of what Peccadillo Pictures' DVD will offer, but it certainly looked and sounded great here: solid images, deep blacks and reliable sounds throughout.

There were no menus or extras on this watermarked screener disc.

WHAT'S LEFT OF US is a slow-burning descent into paranoia and subtle human politics which uses the undead apocalypse scenario as a backdrop rather than an excuse for bloodshed and gunfire. That's not to everyone's tastes, I know. But if you fancy something distinctive, original and thought-provoking, it's well worth giving this a chance.

Review by Stuart Willis