"An intimate account of a family story; low budget, limited time (the directing focuses on succinct details rather than the grand family spectacle). There is even moderation in the tone of the film: no melodrama, even considering the fact that this whole beautiful family is reunited because a cousin tried to commit suicide and is in the hospital in a coma. The a priori dramatic situation is sometimes simply a situation (such as an emotional scene between father and son), an intelligent idea more than a moment to which one adheres, more than a story to which one listens. What one notices most in La vie des morts, the first work by a young director and screenwriter, is a search for harmony, a desire to be together, to strengthen the bonds, to make a link of recognition and perhaps of identity." -Laurence Giavarini, condensed, Cahiers du Cinéma