Mondo Cane

" Enter at your own risk, the world of the forbidden. "
This planet which many humans believe is theirs, has so many mysterious aspects that when a cinematic camera and lights are turned on it, are illuminated like the elusive creatures of the night. A world traveler may go seeking the strange, the unusual, the bizarre and occasionally the forbidden and often find much more than he bargained for. That is what the film "Mondo Cane" is all about. It is a black collection of the many unusual parts of our strange world. The film travels around the globe seeking out the odd customs of various people and offers them up as interesting fare to the ambivalent traveler, the timidly interested and the curiously morbid. In each country visited, we find that what one nation finds disgusting, another finds tolerable. One nation offers up unusual human sexual practices, which another country often finds offensive, tasteless and guttural. Animals in one country are revered, honored and treated as royalty. Yet in a neighboring nation, these same beasts are...

Unique
I don't quite get reviewers who critique this film along the lines of "maybe it was shocking in 1962, but by TODAY'S standards it's tame". This brilliant, beautiful pastiche of stories is as captivating today as it was then (I suppose---I was two at the time). Reviewers seem overly concerned about whether the film is dated, whether "modern sensibilities" will find it "tame"---do we worry about that with Casablanca, or Beethoven's 5th Symphony, or Hamlet? The film is the film, and as such it is startling different from practically anything I can name. The cinematography is astonishing, and the score combined with the narration achieves a brilliant ironic tone that is remarkably consistent throughout the film. Mondo Cane is an absolute essential in any serious film student's repetoire, and unlike some other essential films, it's captivating (heck, most of the "essentials" are honestly a bore to sit through---from Birth of a Nation to Citizen Kane to Dogstar Man). See it for it's...

Dated and Doctored
I question how much of a "documentary" this film really is. On track 20 (Japanese Hangover Remedy) the sound track tells us "a nice Japanese custom requires the clients to be naked [but] we have covered them up". In none of the scenes from Papua New Guinea do we see the long prominent penis gourds commonly worn by tribal men (that would have made a good subject on its own). Even the "stone age cave men" have their lower bodies very much covered up. Where did they learn that from, the Catholic missionaries (don't think there were any in the Stone Age) or from the film crew?

By all means buy the DVD if you saw this film like I did back when it was first released and want to see it again. Otherwise I suggest you give it a big miss.

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