Mondo Cane
Director(s):
Paolo Cavara, Gualitiero Jacopetti, Franco Prosperi
1962
Mondo
Once upon a time I thought these movies were of
great entertainment values. Mondo flicks that is. I’m not sure if I even was
aware what a mondo flick really was and I think I confused it with
shockumentaries such as Faces of Death
or Executions. Here we have a flick that are not even remotely connected to
them. This is the real thing and one of the most famous ones. Possibly even the
first of it’s kind but who knows? It might be interesting to know about the
origin but it has nothing to do with the entertainment values.
I get the feeling of comedy here. Mostly
because of the choice of music score. I don’t know if the intent is to make us
laugh at what’s going on in a very cynical matter but that’s how it seems to
me. But is it funny? Well… No! I can’t really relate to why it’s funny to
ridicule native tribal traditions or to compare them with equally ridicule
western traditions.
There are some observations of animals as well
but most of the time the film lives up to it’s title – Translated into A Dogs World. I do find it entertaining
that the whole thing start with barking dogs though. It creates the clever
metaphor that the title suggests. But the cynicism isn’t very entertaining. I
would much have preferred if the narrations were true and really described
what’s going on before the camera. I cannot be absolute sure that it isn’t of
course but it seem fairly obvious that the truth has been bend a bit…
I won’t grade this as I feel it would be unjust
to the pioneering aspects. It has some qualities when it comes to that, there’s
no doubt about that. But I won’t be watching this again for a long long time!
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