07/27/06 Mondo Cane

Mondo Cane (1962), directed by Paolo Cavara & Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco Prosperi

watched w/ Leslie (partially); VHS (borrowed from John S.); suggested by Jason & John S.

Touted as the original "shockumentary," this bizarre collection of worldwide oddities comes to me courtesy of two friends...Jason and John. Jason has been mentioning (and collecting) these kind of strange European/Asian/American cult phenomenons for quite some time now, always encouraging me to see them. Also, John at work has a lot of these older versions on VHS that he's told me he will let me borrow. Therefore, I finally succumbed to my curiosity about these abnormal hits. This film is probably what all of today's shock treatment filmmaking is all about (see "Faces Of Death" or "Jackass"), but it seemed that it was more of an honest attempt at capturing mankind at its most perverse on film and stringing the thought process together across cultures to see how much alike we can be in our weird behavior. What is put on display here is a voyeuristic collection of documented sequences (both real and seemingly staged) of tribal dances, bizarre rituals, pet cemeteries, animal violence, eating habits, religious self-flagellation, hula dancing, drunken German tavern-goers, and lifeguarding mouth-to-mouth techniques. All the scenes have been compiled by the filmmakers with silly narrative hyperbole and a score that actually received an Academy Award nomination...all to the imagery that is at times both compelling and grotesque to look at. The film remains a landmark, and spawned the pseudo-documentary style known as "Mondo films." It's title in Italian means literally "a dog's world," and is often used as a mild curse, which is appropriate for the utterly aberrant storytelling that takes place here. It's out there, but you know you want to see it too.

3 out of 5 stars