A Dog's Life....

A few weeks ago, I picked up "The Mondo Cane Collection", an 8-DVD set of the collected works of Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi. Messrs Jacopetti and Prosperi pretty much invented the template for the "Mondo" shock-documentary style of film-making, made (in)famous by their "Mondo Cane" (1962). Much imitated and influential, their style of cinema initially worked on a travelogue-like run through of various customs, rituals and events, and gained notice for their usage of often explicit and cruel imagery. Their look at the state of a recently post-colonial Africa in "Africa Addio" upped the violence stakes considerably, and got the film-makers in a lot of legal trouble over accusations that they encouraged mercenaries to execute prisoners for the sake of the camera. The final collaboration between Jacopetti and Prosperi was the slavery drama "Farewell Uncle Tom" (Adios Zio Tom), which set a benchmark in the treatment of then-taboo subject matter on film.

It was funny for me to view once more "Mondo Cane" and "Africa Addio", in that I could remember once again what I found alternately interesting, irritating and disturbing about these films, when I first viewed them in the late 90's. I don't feel that "Mondo Cane" holds up particularly well overall, and the shock value of this film really hasn't lasted. "Africa Addio" is a different matter - very challenging and often brutal, the piece nonetheless has a rather unpleasant racist streak about it (a facet which also appeared in "Mondo Cane"). Despite the protestations of Jacopetti and Prosperi, there is something very patronising and almost nasty about the way Africans are portrayed in "Africa Addio". In addition, whilst the film is ready to criticise British, French and Belgian colonialists, it remains completely silent about Italian colonialism in Ethiopia and Libya. The animal slaughter scenes are genuinely unpleasant, but easily the most horrifying moments are the exposure of child slavery. For once, even the narrator holds a sombre tone.

I've checked out "Mondo Cane 2", which is essentially a retread of the original, but with more obviously staged scenes, including the self-immolation of a Buddhist priest in Vietnam (admitted by Jacopetti in the included "The Godfathers Of Mondo" DVD). The staging/faking of scenes in these productions is something I will consider coming back to in a future post, as it has for me interesting questions regarding the "truth" that cinema often wishes to display.

I've not seen "Women Of the World" yet (another "Mondo Cane" spin-off), but I have seen "Farewell Uncle Tom", a film I've been wanting to see for years. I will definitely be doing a piece on this in the future; all I can say now is that this film doesn't just flirt with the barriers of taste, it drives over them with a steamroller. It is certainly not a film for the merely curious or easily offended, put it that way.

In spite of my caveats, I must say that Blue Underground have done a fantastic job in putting this package together. The film transfers are uniformally superb, the documentary is excellent, and there's even never-seen-before uncut versions of "Africa Addio" and "Farewell Uncle Tom" too. This is an essential and highly-recommended collection for those interested in the work of these directors.