DES MORTS/OF THE DEAD

Des Morts/Of the Dead is a serious documentary that explores the many perspectives of death from around the world. The mondo genre has had a following amongst drive-in audiences, horror fans and video rental junkies. Films like Mondo Cane, Shocking Asia and the most popular shockumentary, Faces of Death, attracted rental audiences mainly through word of mouth. Many of these films had actual footage of death, whereas some contained much fabricated material. Directed by the trio of Jean-Pol Ferbus, Dominique Garny and Theirry Zeno, Of the Dead captures the stories of the dead, the dying, and the people they leave behind. Woodhaven Entertainment has released a "digitally remastered" and "color-enhanced" version of this film.

Of the Dead begins with the funeral procession of a woman who lived in a Thai village. The ceremony is very long, with many prayers and blessings said (many segments in this film are subtitled). Cows are sacrificed, cooked and eaten. Great care is taken into lowering the body into the grave.

The next segment involves a woman whose husband had died of cancer. He had an interview between a nun and himself videotaped to record his thoughts and feelings about facing his own mortality. At the time that this film was made, recording your own video was a far-off idea, as people did not commonly own video cameras, or even VCRs.

The next stop is the funeral home. The viewer is taken through the process of embalming and preparing the body for waking in graphic detail. The mortician even gives a rundown and demonstration on the many types of caskets that are available.

Pet cemeteries, a chaotic funeral in Korea, and various brutal rites from all across Asia are visited. Even Mexico's Day of the Dead festival is documented. An in-depth look into the process of cryonic suspension (suspended animation).

However, two very personal stories are those involving a Mexican man who is in the intensive care unit after being stabbed by a gang member and the nursing home for Muscular Dystrophy patients.

The man who is stabbed explains his story - that he had received a telephone call that his mother had died, and that he was on his way to the funeral when he was assaulted by a man with a knife. The viewer is shown his life-saving surgery, with nothing left to the imagination.

In the case of the Muscular Dystrophy patients, the viewer is given a chance to hear the views on life, death and the feelings dealt with when coping with a degenerative, terminal disease.

Many other aspects of death are explored from autopsies to ancient mummies unearthed in Mexico. No details are spared.

This film takes a straightforward, non-exploitative position on the documentary footage, which is very rare for films of this type. Although some of the other mondo films were presented as objective studies, they were mainly exploitation films.

Of the Dead appears to have been taken from Gorgon Video's old VHS release. The video quality is very poor, bearing some video dropouts and even a "PLAY" command at the top of the screen for a brief moment.

The audio is as good as the VHS source it was taken from. The claims of a remastered print are very far removed from the truth.

There are no extras to mention, other than trailers for other Woodhaven releases. However, the trailer for another mondo film, Kwaheri, is worth a view.

A rare film has been given unfair treatment. Hopefully, this title will be revisited when better elements are available, and more care will be put into the mastering.

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