Des morts (1979) User Reviews

Mortuary 101

[haildevilman · 6/10 · 8 July 2007]

This is not going to please fans of shockumentaries. And the mainstream shouldn't even try.

This is what happens when the "Faces Of Death" series actually gets fans. The inspiration for this was all those and similar. But they gave it a dose of education too.

How do different cultures handle death? That's the question.

It's answered here in all it's colorful glory. And it's graphic glory as well. We see it all. Mummies, accidents, funerals, cremations, you name it.

It doesn't move as fast as docs of its ilk, but it won't scare said fans away either. This is one that doctors, historians, and those in the funeral business might be clued to.

But it IS a shockumentary. Forget that at your own risk.

Funerary dirge.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 7/10 · 1 March 2011]

In Dominique Garny's and Thierry Zeno "Des Morts" aka "Of the Dead" the viewer sees lots of dead bodies in a various states of decomposition:dissected,cremated,burned and buried.There are burial rites from Nepal,Thailand,United States,Belgium and South Korea.One particularly shocking segment involves an execution of Phillipino revolutionary by his former friend.There is also plenty of unpleasant animal butchery.The killing of four oxen is particularly harrowing and very graphic.Several interviews with muscular dystrophy patients are deadly dull.The various episodes about death and funeral are presented in pseudo-scientific style.Still if you liked "Der Weg Nach Eden" or "Orozco the Embalmer" you may give this mondo sickie a try.7 corpses out of 10.

Tame

[shutterspeedfilmsdotcom · 26 March 2006]

Agreed.

This is a pretty tame entry into the death reality genre. I'm not sure it belongs as a shockumentary, either, although there are some disturbing images present.

The only real notoriety concerning this movie is the fact that some of the footage (obviously in the public domain) was used in the z-grade flick NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES. More specifically, the footage detailing the funeral preparations of a tribal person.

This may serve as a good primer for those with weak constitutions, yet still curious about death. Otherwise, this documentary is pretty boring and without shock (not necessarily a bad thing).

Slooooow

[mrdonleone · 2/10 · 4 February 2020]

I've seen a lot of boring movies, but this one really gave new meaning to the term 'slow'. Nothing special happens in it as well. So sad, for Zeno's "Vace de Noces" is one of my favorite movies ever. So sad. Yes. Boring documentary, this. Too few naked woman corpses in it as well. Just plain useless waste of home.

Less Is Morts

[NoDakTatum · 2/10 · 10 November 2023]

This French documentary shuns the usually sleazy world of mondo docs like "Faces of Death" and tries to show how different parts of the world view death. The major problem here is that time and time again, the three directors slip into shocking footage, and the unshocking footage is especially dull. The film opens with an American preparing a body for embalming. We then switch to a very long segment in Thailand, as a family prepares to bury a dead relative. The grandmother lies in a hut for three days, decomposes, and is finally buried, but not before we witness the graphic killing of four oxen. The film makers also visit Belgium, Nepal, and South Korea, juxtaposing scenes between what we would consider shocking treatment of the dead, and scenes of how Americans treat their terminally ill and dying.

The film makers rally around their point, saying "see, we are not all that different," and then proceeds to grind the viewers face into this boring little statement for an hour and forty five minutes. After some interviews with some American muscular dystrophy patients, who talk about how they want to be buried or cremated, the film makers unwisely show a Filipino revolutionary executed by a former friend, before being dumped into a shallow grave. "Death" is kind of a big topic to trim into a little documentary. There is no narrator or central idea, save the "we aren't so different" rigamarole, so scenes drag on forever in between the carnage. If you like those shockumentaries like "Faces of Death," I feel sorry for you but not half as sorry as I am for watching this mess. I do not recommend the deadening dull "Des Morts."

Excellent documentary...

[dwpollar · 8/10 · 9 June 2002]

1st watched 6/9/2002 - 8 out of 10(Dir:Jean-Pol Ferbus, Dominique Garny & Thierry Zeno): Excellent documentary about how different cultures prepare their dead. This is almost a how-to film on being a mortician with it's very graphic detail about the process, but this is reality as far as they are concerned and therefore I didn't consider it too much. It WAS very difficult to sit through the whole movie because of the emotions that these scenes conjured up for me and some of the graphic portrayals of embalming, cremation, and death by execution but again this is what this movie was about. I appreciated the portrayals without being preachy about who is right and who is wrong. Documentaries usually do this very well because we only see what is real and not acted out according to the writer or director's perspectives and whims. This is not a SHOCK movie although it was in this section at my local video store, but rather an exploration of a subject(which just happened to be death and dying). It also had some scenes about living with death-causing illnesses and even just living with old age which was an interesting and much needed twist to an otherwise very sobering subject. A kind of wrongly categorized film that probably gets bypassed for this very reason but should be viewed at least once by those with strong stomach's and an interest in this subject.