"Ellos volvieron" - that means "They returned" - is a quite disturbing movie as well many of Ivan Noel's movies are.
Let's start by saying that it is sort of thriller with strong supernatural connotations, so avoid seeing it if you are the kind of people that want to find the "earthly" logic in every scene of a movie.
In a small Argentinian village, three children of an elementary school - Lionel, Lucio and Sabrina - disappear while they are playing inside a sinister almost-in-ruins former hospital called "The Shame", built by some nazist immigrants.
In that place, the boys of the village freely play any kind of games, including sexual ones and even weird games that seem to imitate the tortures that nazis inflicted to their victims.
After vain searches, fortunately the missing children return home three days later; they are completely naked and dirty, as well as in a catatonic state: they don't speak at all and therefore they are unable to help anyone understand what happened.
A federal inspector is sent to lead the investigation, while the city slowly sinks into a state of deep suspicion towards everyone.
The main suspect seems to be the boys' classroom teacher who has recently arrived from another town and, since the boys' return, he keeps on delivery strange speeches about evil winning over good and the need of a a rebalancing.
One day, after a football match in a muddy field, the boys hurry to the shower: Lucio and Lionel are facing the wall with their hands covering their genitals, but when they turn and take their hands away, everyone sees with horror that they are been emasculated!
So now's a case of sexual abuses.
While the police carry out their difficulty investigations, strange deaths begin to occur.
It starts with Mr. Himmel, a believed mad descendant of the builder "The shame", fell (or pushed down) from a balcony of the building. There is even a video circulating on YouTube about the suicide (or murder), apparently taken by some kids.
One night, the mayor sees Lucio alone in the park and after being accused by him to be responsible of the death of some people, the mayor run away from Lucio but collapses in the middle of the street and is run over by a car.
Then it's the school headmistress' turn, struck by the collapse of the basketball hoop, under the impassive eyes of the children.
The city judge, while officially talking on television about the case, collapses dead, bleeding profusely and unusually from her nose and mouth.
The school psychologist hangs herself after the teacher rather clearly asked her to do so - after having told her that the children are dead - because she knew the truth, namely that Lucio was born from the incestuous relationship between his mother and his grandfather.
The story is now clearly explained and we see it in a flashback: Lucio, Lionel and Sabrina were dead the very moment they disappeared, all killed by Juan.
Indeed, Juan only wanted to kill Lucio: he lures him into the basement and suffocates him with a plastic bag; unfortunately Lionel and Sabrina arrive and see their friend limp on the ground; Juan tells them that he fell and then lashes out first at Sabrina and then at Lionel and kills them both by suffocating them with the same plastic bag.
Then he strips naked the children's corpses, leaving them on the ground and taking away their clothes to simulate a sexual murder. Later, some wild animals will unwittingly complete the simulation by feeding on the genitals of the two males: "We were just flesh" will tell Lucio's ghost to Juan.
But if the three children had died that very day, how on earth could they have returned home?
Slow down: remember that it is a supernatural movie: it was their soul that had returned to take revenge on all those people who had been in some way responsible for that ugly chain of horrors and wickedness (the evil, in the end of all) which had had as its final result the brutal killing of Lucio and his two friends.
It all begins when Lucio's grandfather wants to demolish the old Nazi hospital to build a new one; but the state funding never arrived, because it was grabbed by the mayor.
The corrupt judge manages to place the blame solely on Lucio's grandfather, saving the mayor.
The situation worsens and Lucio's grandfather falls into financial but also psychological ruin, becoming a sort of useless background figure in the life of his young daughter, Lucio's mother; and this perhaps played a role in the incest that will occur years later, from which Lucio will be born.
Then the school psychologist, who was also Lucio's mother's psychologist, knows about her secret (who were Lucio's father) and, perhaps without wanting to, confides it to the Julio who at that point goes crazy and decides to kill Lucio. The rest is known.
And indeed all these people die, some naturally (well, natural so to speak...), some committing suicide (or being led to do so). Everyone except Lucio's grandfather and mother who were still guilty for their part, having fathered a child through incest. But evidently the mother is always the mother. But grandfather?
So it was all some kind of nonsense dream?
Or was it collective madness?
And how was it possible that people didn't realize that they weren't real kids but only souls? Yet they visited them, they saw the genitals cut off in the boys, they took photos! And the family members didn't see these mutilations when they returned? They were too evident, in fact right at the beginning of the film we can see the blood running down Lucio and Lionel's thighs while their mothers hug them crying.
And then, who was really the teacher? A sort of angel sent to earth to rebalance the evil situation? Or was he simply a psychic through whom the spirits of children acted?
In my humble opinion it's all a symbolism, typical of the director: the children have returned home in the sense that the police found their bodies and brought them home. But we, seeing them flesh and bones, are led to believe that they are alive, we delude ourselves that they are, even if the two boys are horribly mutilated.
And the died people? They were bound to die because their own fault and they were probably killed by someone, maybe by the teacher. Or maybe by the classmates. Who knows it? And, anyway, who cares about?
Whatever happened, it's not over yet: now it's the turn of Juan to die: Lucio (indeed Lucio's ghost) appears into Juan's camper; Juan apologizes saying he didn't mean to do it; the child tells him that he knows it but now he must fix the situation; the two get into Juan's van and while he is driving on a road overlooking the sea, Lucio's spirit pushes hard on the accelerator, while the spirits of Lioned and Sabrina appear from behind and clasp him. The van flies off the road and crashes into the ravine, catching fire.
Fire is the purification of all evil. And so we can see the three children re-emerge from the depths of the water and play happily and festively on the seashore at sunset.
Their soul can now rest in peace.
Their bodies, well we'll never know. But it doesn't matter. After all, the beauty of a person, especially a child, lies in his own soul.
Let's start by saying that it is sort of thriller with strong supernatural connotations, so avoid seeing it if you are the kind of people that want to find the "earthly" logic in every scene of a movie.
In a small Argentinian village, three children of an elementary school - Lionel, Lucio and Sabrina - disappear while they are playing inside a sinister almost-in-ruins former hospital called "The Shame", built by some nazist immigrants.
In that place, the boys of the village freely play any kind of games, including sexual ones and even weird games that seem to imitate the tortures that nazis inflicted to their victims.
After vain searches, fortunately the missing children return home three days later; they are completely naked and dirty, as well as in a catatonic state: they don't speak at all and therefore they are unable to help anyone understand what happened.
A federal inspector is sent to lead the investigation, while the city slowly sinks into a state of deep suspicion towards everyone.
The main suspect seems to be the boys' classroom teacher who has recently arrived from another town and, since the boys' return, he keeps on delivery strange speeches about evil winning over good and the need of a a rebalancing.
One day, after a football match in a muddy field, the boys hurry to the shower: Lucio and Lionel are facing the wall with their hands covering their genitals, but when they turn and take their hands away, everyone sees with horror that they are been emasculated!
So now's a case of sexual abuses.
While the police carry out their difficulty investigations, strange deaths begin to occur.
It starts with Mr. Himmel, a believed mad descendant of the builder "The shame", fell (or pushed down) from a balcony of the building. There is even a video circulating on YouTube about the suicide (or murder), apparently taken by some kids.
One night, the mayor sees Lucio alone in the park and after being accused by him to be responsible of the death of some people, the mayor run away from Lucio but collapses in the middle of the street and is run over by a car.
Then it's the school headmistress' turn, struck by the collapse of the basketball hoop, under the impassive eyes of the children.
The city judge, while officially talking on television about the case, collapses dead, bleeding profusely and unusually from her nose and mouth.
The school psychologist hangs herself after the teacher rather clearly asked her to do so - after having told her that the children are dead - because she knew the truth, namely that Lucio was born from the incestuous relationship between his mother and his grandfather.
The story is now clearly explained and we see it in a flashback: Lucio, Lionel and Sabrina were dead the very moment they disappeared, all killed by Juan.
Indeed, Juan only wanted to kill Lucio: he lures him into the basement and suffocates him with a plastic bag; unfortunately Lionel and Sabrina arrive and see their friend limp on the ground; Juan tells them that he fell and then lashes out first at Sabrina and then at Lionel and kills them both by suffocating them with the same plastic bag.
Then he strips naked the children's corpses, leaving them on the ground and taking away their clothes to simulate a sexual murder. Later, some wild animals will unwittingly complete the simulation by feeding on the genitals of the two males: "We were just flesh" will tell Lucio's ghost to Juan.
But if the three children had died that very day, how on earth could they have returned home?
Slow down: remember that it is a supernatural movie: it was their soul that had returned to take revenge on all those people who had been in some way responsible for that ugly chain of horrors and wickedness (the evil, in the end of all) which had had as its final result the brutal killing of Lucio and his two friends.
It all begins when Lucio's grandfather wants to demolish the old Nazi hospital to build a new one; but the state funding never arrived, because it was grabbed by the mayor.
The corrupt judge manages to place the blame solely on Lucio's grandfather, saving the mayor.
The situation worsens and Lucio's grandfather falls into financial but also psychological ruin, becoming a sort of useless background figure in the life of his young daughter, Lucio's mother; and this perhaps played a role in the incest that will occur years later, from which Lucio will be born.
Then the school psychologist, who was also Lucio's mother's psychologist, knows about her secret (who were Lucio's father) and, perhaps without wanting to, confides it to the Julio who at that point goes crazy and decides to kill Lucio. The rest is known.
And indeed all these people die, some naturally (well, natural so to speak...), some committing suicide (or being led to do so). Everyone except Lucio's grandfather and mother who were still guilty for their part, having fathered a child through incest. But evidently the mother is always the mother. But grandfather?
So it was all some kind of nonsense dream?
Or was it collective madness?
And how was it possible that people didn't realize that they weren't real kids but only souls? Yet they visited them, they saw the genitals cut off in the boys, they took photos! And the family members didn't see these mutilations when they returned? They were too evident, in fact right at the beginning of the film we can see the blood running down Lucio and Lionel's thighs while their mothers hug them crying.
And then, who was really the teacher? A sort of angel sent to earth to rebalance the evil situation? Or was he simply a psychic through whom the spirits of children acted?
In my humble opinion it's all a symbolism, typical of the director: the children have returned home in the sense that the police found their bodies and brought them home. But we, seeing them flesh and bones, are led to believe that they are alive, we delude ourselves that they are, even if the two boys are horribly mutilated.
And the died people? They were bound to die because their own fault and they were probably killed by someone, maybe by the teacher. Or maybe by the classmates. Who knows it? And, anyway, who cares about?
Whatever happened, it's not over yet: now it's the turn of Juan to die: Lucio (indeed Lucio's ghost) appears into Juan's camper; Juan apologizes saying he didn't mean to do it; the child tells him that he knows it but now he must fix the situation; the two get into Juan's van and while he is driving on a road overlooking the sea, Lucio's spirit pushes hard on the accelerator, while the spirits of Lioned and Sabrina appear from behind and clasp him. The van flies off the road and crashes into the ravine, catching fire.
Fire is the purification of all evil. And so we can see the three children re-emerge from the depths of the water and play happily and festively on the seashore at sunset.
Their soul can now rest in peace.
Their bodies, well we'll never know. But it doesn't matter. After all, the beauty of a person, especially a child, lies in his own soul.