As a big fan of cult cinema, there's usually at least one film I like in each of the main genres (with the exception of Nazisploitation), and although this is only the second 'Mondo' film that I've seen; I doubt I'll ever have a favourite in this one. Surprisingly, there was actually quite a few of these films made (I could never see them having mass market appeal, but I'm wrong apparently) and Mondo Cane was the one that kicked it all off. These films would go on to try and top each other in terms of shock value as more and more were made; but since this was the first one, it's not as shocking as some of the later ones. The Italian word 'Mondo' literally translates into English as 'world' and that is actually quite fitting as this film could be described as a visual representation of various things that go on in both the animal and human worlds. The film takes a documentary approach, although it couldn't really be considered a documentary as not all of it is exactly real, with several obviously fake sequences getting mixed in along with the real stuff.
The film is not very strong, shock-wise, in terms of gore or nastiness; but it is an entirely bleak film. Just about everything in it paints a bad picture of the world; we've got tribal men taking revenge on a shark, turtles baking in the sun, people gathering up shark fins off the beach etc. A lot of the footage shown in the film is fake, and unfortunately most of is obviously fake too. This is a shame because a lot of what the film has to say is interesting; it's just hard to take seriously. I can't say I'm a big fan of documentaries in general, but rated as a documentary; this film falls down again. There's a voice-over that runs throughout, and is actually quite entertaining and informative, but there's no real narrative to the film and it does feel a lot like the filmmakers just filmed a load of stuff on a similar topic and then just stuck it all together - and to be honest, I reckon that probably is what happened. There's not really very much to recommend this film for and I wonder who it was actually aimed at; but it's interesting for the fact that it's the first 'mondo' film and some of the things in it are worth seeing...even if they are fake.
The film is not very strong, shock-wise, in terms of gore or nastiness; but it is an entirely bleak film. Just about everything in it paints a bad picture of the world; we've got tribal men taking revenge on a shark, turtles baking in the sun, people gathering up shark fins off the beach etc. A lot of the footage shown in the film is fake, and unfortunately most of is obviously fake too. This is a shame because a lot of what the film has to say is interesting; it's just hard to take seriously. I can't say I'm a big fan of documentaries in general, but rated as a documentary; this film falls down again. There's a voice-over that runs throughout, and is actually quite entertaining and informative, but there's no real narrative to the film and it does feel a lot like the filmmakers just filmed a load of stuff on a similar topic and then just stuck it all together - and to be honest, I reckon that probably is what happened. There's not really very much to recommend this film for and I wonder who it was actually aimed at; but it's interesting for the fact that it's the first 'mondo' film and some of the things in it are worth seeing...even if they are fake.