Mondo Cane/Review

Setting out to make a simple documentary, a reporter (Gualtiero Jacopetti) a naturalist (Franco Prosperi) and a film director (Paolo Cavara) would collide together as one filmmaker and would find themselves making cinema history with their milestone hit, MONDO CANE (AKA "A Dog's World"), a collage of sequences that were filmed all over the world and documenting such events as tribal rituals, exotic wonders, and bizarre behavior. It was a picture that would single-handedly trigger it's own type of film genre and spawn dozens of imitations for years to come. In fact, the impact would be so great that it would soon provide a gateway to what we now call "Reality TV".

But stepping back a bit now, let's try to go back to the very beginning when most Westerners' exposure to the outside world was often by way of "National Geographic" or "Walt Disney's True-Life Adventures" on television. With one of the most bombastic advertising campaigns ever seen for movies, the arrival of MONDO CANE would guarantee that this film would indeed provide some extra kick that wouldn't be seen on any of those TV shows. Though many critics were mixed at the finished product, the movie nevertheless became a success worldwide (At least in territories where it wasn't banned or censored) and not only got a nomination for the Golden Palm at Cannes, but also a Best Song nomination for composer, Riz Ortolani's, "More" (Make that the second film here at The GCDb to get Academy-Award recognition along with Shaft) As well as serving it's purpose for being educational, the film also had the ability to provoke the voyeur in all of us for it's taboo curiosities. Sound familiar? I'd say this is a case of a throwback to the gems found at Red Light Roadshow Revue. And of course, the exploitable elements would eventually become much more and more graphic and notorious once the rip-offs would emerge.

So with the legacy aside, how does the movie itself hold up? Like the critics' original reaction, the result is slightly mixed for the most part (Though that could be thanks to what is considered shocking nowdays and what isn't) But the pros outweight the cons:

Some of the segments are dated and lame ("Lifeguards", Fitness gym for old ladies, "Valentino's Relatives")

Some are still shockworthy (Animal slaughter/cruelty, Singapore's "House of the Dead")

Some provoke awareness (Life in Post-atomic islands)

And some still manage to appeal to the JACKASS in all of us (Drunken behavior in Germany, Portugal's Running of the Bulls)

So there's enough stuff here for one to look at and be bewildered by, but I would still order everyone to check it out because (as a filmfreak) it's always mandatory to see "how it all started".

Reviewed by Laydback