Topic: Shockumentary/Mondo Week Marathon

[Jimmy]

This is a genre of film that is interesting for many reasons, but mostly because it's linked to our primary instinct who force us to watch an accident or a disaster even if we find this disgusting or hard to stomach. This week I'm in the mood to watch the one I have in my collection. Some of them countains shocking, degusting and hard to stomach materials, but many are fun too. So here we go for a week in a dying genre, since the web give the same kind of footage for nothing.

This is the titles I will watch in this marathon :

Faces of Death (1978), Faces of Death II (1981), Faces of Death III (1985), Mondo cane (1962), Mondo cane 2 (1963), Women of the World (1963), Africa addio (1966), Goodbye Uncle Tom (1971), Ecco (1963), The Forbidden (1966), Mondo Bizarro (1966), Mondo Freudo (1966), Executions (??), Savage Man Savage Beast (1974) and Mondo magic (1975)

[Jimmy]

Title : Faces of Death (1978)

Overview
Possibly one of the most talked about video series of all time, Faces Of Death examines the many guises of death in extreme close-up. Sure to shock, horrify and even repulse, these brutal films are not meant for the faint of heart. The classic series is the one true original Faces Of Death. Accept no substitute!

My Impression
The first one of this genre that I've seen in my life and my mother beat me (not too hard) for one of the first and only time in my life because I've let my younger sister watched it with me. I can understand why my mother was really angry since my sister was only 6 years old and had made nightmares for week after that experience. The first time I've seen it I was impress and shock, but since them I've realized that much of it is fake. Except for some autopsy footage and the animal scene everything is fake or modify. So the more know moments (the electric chair, the monkey restaurant, the aligator attack and the bear attack) are fabricated and really obvious if we take the time too think : multiple angle, camera place at impossible place if hidden (by exemple a camera under the table in the monkey scene. Don't forget the camera were big 30 years ago), peoples who didn't speak naturally, many continuity errors...

Sure there are a lot of real footage that can be not for anyone : a pitbull fight, a normal day at a slaughterhouse, autopsy procedures, seals clubbing, ...   
 
Rating :

[Jimmy]

Title : Faces of Death II (1981)

Overview
Faces of Death, one of the most talked about video series of all time, examines the many guises of death in extreme close-up. Sure to shock, horrify and even repulse, these brutal films are not meant for the faint of heart. This classic series is the one true original. Accept no substitute!

My Impression
This one is different than the original, the difference is that the footages is real in it. Just one scene that I'm not sure of his reality (a theft in a pharmacy gone bad, it looks real but I don't understand why the complete police intervention is film by a newscrew[see edit]). So depending of your taste this one is better or worse than FOD1. Surprisingly for a documentary of this genre this is a good presentation of the different ways that we can be catch by the Grim Reaper. In fact even if the footage is gory this isn't too bad, most of it came from the TV news film archive (but we see the aftermath contrary of what we see in the news).

Sure you get the usual presentation of the results of death in car accident, train wreckage, plane crash and war. But not everything in it is death footage, by exemple there are some fail car stunt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSIhQxpdWdg
Don't worry this is perfectly safe to watch. Kenny Powers failed stunt (not surprisingly, I could say)

Like the precedent entry this one countains animal cruelty footage too (dolphin massacre, fur farm, laboratory experiment) so you are warned.
 
Rating :

edit : Finally this scene is fake. One of the thief is the director John Alan Schwartz who played the cult leader in the first one and Mike Lorenzo the snuff killer in the third one. But they almost got me with this scene

[Jimmy]

Title : Faces of Death III (1985)

Overview
Brace yourself for another journey into the dark corridors of death. Faces Of Death III features gory real-life footage of death, murder and mayhem, following in the footsteps of its infamous predecessors. Many "facets" of death are explored in this gruesome collection of agony caught on tape.

My Impression
This one is a complete ripoff direct to video. Fake entirely except for some footage of car crash on the german Autobahn (are they always without any speed limit? Look like a dead zone to me), a chicken slaughterhouse and a rabit slaughterhouse. The fake death footage is badly made, edited, acted and laughable (not in a good way). For someone who doesn't want to see the real deal I suppose this is ok, but for me a complete waste of time and money. 
 
Rating :

[Achim]

[...] german Autobahn (are they always without any speed limit? Look like a dead zone to me), a [...]

Yes, the German Autobahn can be a dangerous place. However, IIRC it's only about 10% of all the freeway that's actually without speed limit. But on those you are indeed allowed to drive as fast as you want/can (Speeds of well above 200km/h or 130mph are quite possible. Of course, loads of times traffic jams forbod those speeds

[DJ Doena]

(are they always without any speed limit? Look like a dead zone to me)

As Achim said, most parts are speed-limited to 130 km/h (81 mph), but there are still limit-free zones out there.

As for death toll, see here.

[Jimmy]

Title : Mondo Cane (1962)

Overview
“All the scenes you will see in this film are true. If they are shocking, it is only because there are many shocking things in this world…”

With those words, Directors Gualtiero Jacopetti, Paolo Cavara and Franco Prosperi unleashed the international sensation that stunned critics and moviegoers alike while revolutionizing the documentary genre forever. Filmed in every corner of the world, this landmark epic explores the culture of life and death, the anguish of man and beast, and the taboos of sex and religion, all amidst the barbarism of civilization gone insane. Sometimes beautiful, often horrifying yet always surprising, it remains one of the most disturbing and controversial films of our time.

My Impression
This one is certainly more pleasant to watch than the first serie reviewed in this marathon. I don't think that watching dead peoples (real or fake) is a crowd pleaser. This film is the one who had started the genre and it was a huge success. It's easy to understand why, 45 years ago there were no internet, no real tv and the only way to know about the practice of the exotic nations was the National Geographic. So imagine the general public of this time who got the chance to see those things and not just in photographic images, but in moving images.

Like I've said this one isn't that controversial (the overview on the disc say so, but this isn't really the case) or hard to watch (except for one scene where some cows are decapitated in a military celebration). This is more a showing of different culture practice around the world. Some of those practices are quite funny (by exemple the rich old USians tourists in Hawaï or some drunken German - maybe you have some relatives in this film ). The only practice that I find hard to watch is a religious celebration in Italy : A man lead a procession in a very old city and he stops a lot of time to hit his legs with a stone, doesn't sound that bad but all this is really bloody. The film end on a very sad note (I said sad not gruesome) with a native tribe in New Guinea.

One of my favourite Mondo film and certainly one of the most easy to watch in the genre.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7neqateDFFE
Trailer - Perfectly safe to watch
 
Rating :

[Jimmy]

Title : Mondo Cane 2 (1964)

Overview
Two years after their international smash MONDO CANE became the most controversial documentary of its time, Directors Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi again ignited a firestorm of outrage and acclaim as they travelled the globe to film an all-new exploration of primitives, penitents and perversions in a world gone mad.

My Impression
This second part isn't as good as the original one for many reasons. The footage use for it is the one that was not good enough for the first, the footage is almost all about the occidental world, some of them is clearly staged and the ensemble is an image patching without a logic narrative. Not that it is bad, but this film is a weak follow up to the original. By exemple a musical number where 6 peoples are slap on stage while a pianist plays is clearly fake or, the most iconical image of the film, a monk who imolate himself on fire for protesting is fake too (the event is real, but it was not filmed for this movie as reveal by the director in the documentary who is included in the boxset). I like some scene like the photoshoot for the pulp fiction novel cover or the shooting target practice by the Mexican police or, my favourite, a park at London (I think) where all kind of crazy peoples make nonsense speech and nobody seems interested (does this place exist really? Look like a good place to get a free laugh).
 
Rating :

[Najemikon]

a park at London (I think) where all kind of crazy peoples make nonsense speech and nobody seems interested (does this place exist really? Look like a good place to get a free laugh).

Was it the Houses of Parliament?

[Jimmy]

Hyde park (just check on the disc). The place had certainly change a lot (this movie was made more than 40 years ago), but I've attach some screen capture to my post.

edit : just understand the joke (I'm not fast the morning). If it's like the place we park our deputies this is more a kindergarden than a crazy house...

[Najemikon]

I should have added a smiley!  But now you mention Hyde Park, it reminds me of something. Some weird by-law probably that gives nuts a soap box to yell from, I can't remember. There's definitely something.

[Sanuye]

Isn't it the Speakers' Corner ?
I read about it in my first or second english course... and I thought it was famous... 

(Nice joke, Jon  )

[Najemikon]

Isn't it the Speakers' Corner ?
I read about it in my first or second english course... and I thought it was famous... 

(Nice joke, Jon  )

Thank you, but it was only possible with Jimmy's set-up!  I think it probably was speakers corner, but I still feel like I'm thinking of something else.

[Jimmy]

Isn't it the Speakers' Corner ?

It seems that you have got it Laura 
This place looks so weird to me in the documentary that I was unsure of its reality.

The original and most noted is in the north-east corner of Hyde Park in London, England.

We even have one of them in our country and I've never heard of it 

Dedicated by the Earl of Mountbatten on April 12, 1966, Speakers' Corner in Regina, Saskatchewan is located on the north shore of Wascana Lake. It serves as a constant reminder of the notion of free speech and assembly and a tribute to Saskatchewan people who have upheld that heritage.

[Jimmy]

Title : Women Of The World (1963)

Overview
“The camera strips woman right down to her skin,” proclaimed the ads, “…lays bare the secrets of her mind and body!” Using outtakes from MONDO CANE as their foundation, Directors Gualtiero Jacopetti, Paolo Cavara and Franco Prosperi created this leering yet lyrical study of women’s roles in the international culture of the bizarre. Here is the female of the species as mothers, murderers, warriors and whores, respected as high-powered executives and objectified as bodacious bombshells, grasping for eternal beauty and even engaging in “unnatural friendships.” From love in the streets of Paris to death on the African plain, the MONDO masters turn their unflinching eye on all the things never before known – and never before shown – about WOMEN OF THE WORLD.

My Impression
This one is really interesting and the subject is certainly the most interesting of all the documentary that I've watched this week. This is a good presentation of the different woman sides in different culture. Good beginning with a regiment of israelien woman soldier (they look certainly better than the one when I was doing my millitary training). We travel from Japan (pearl diver) to algeria (insane women risking their live to collect shrapnels) to Germany (Hamburg women in the window : looks like the German version of the Amsterdam Red Light District, never heard of this one before) to Italia (woman working as mourner for funeral) to New Guinea (a tribe where the woman do all the work because the man pass the complete day doing girly thing) and many other place. The documentary countains as usual many weird things : an european clinic where the woman go to regenerate their face skin by removing all of it (really insane if real and scary) or a make-up and clothes demonstration done for an isolated African tribe by some european business (the situation is so ridiculous, do they really need that).

Very good documentary, a little bit dated by moment in the naration but fun to watch.
 
Rating :