Des morts

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).