MONDO PAZZO aka MONDO CANE 2

By Jimmy Squarejaw
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I feel that the appeal to death films, extreme films, insane cinematic violence, and the Mondo genre is not only the “front seat” intrigue they have, but also the often dark but hilarious undertones many of these movies have.  MONDO CANE for me was the top of the heap when it came to black comedy and you can read my inane ramblings on that film here, http://www.sundaysnuff.blogspot.com/2012/10/mondo-cane.html.  Not too many shockumentaries even try to match the wit put into this, I can only think of DYING: LAST SECONDS OF LIFE, so I was exuberant when I popped MONDO CANE PAZZO, aka MONDO CANE 2 into the ol’ cinematic picture decoder because MONDO PAZZO was not only a better movie for content, production, and visuals, it was fucking brilliantly written and narrated.

If the formula aint broken don’t fix it is the age old adage, and the original directors Gualtiero Jocopetti and Franco Prosperi return to the shockumentary genre they created with MONDO PAZZO in 1963, only one year after MONDO CANE.  MONDO PAZZO is filled with the same type of anthropological study on societies mores, taboos, and rituals; but this time around watching it was trying to keep up with Groucho Marx narrating.

MONDO PAZZO begins with a disclaimer stating that the filmmakers love dogs and after complaints about the treatment on dogs in the first movie, they vow to not show any animal cruelty, except for showing surgery of a dog getting it’s vocal cords  snipped out.  But that was englishmen starting that, and they have no control over the Italians because the next scene is a god awful fashion show where the models wear clothing that is representative of their dyed dogs.  If Elena wants to wear a spotted dress, little Fifi will be dyed with spots, or if Maria wants to wear a neon green ensemble that looks like fashion designer Rei Kawakubo birthed an aborted fetus conceived by Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars, well goddammit dye your dog aborted fetus green and parade him around to show how truly expendable you are to society!

As with MONDO CANE, MONDO PAZZO does an amazing job weaving clip into the next clip by matching a theme or idea, and by the end of the movie the filmmakers have literally done this 75 to 100 times.  Think the telephone game, but this version starts with dog shows and wig makers and ends with chicks puking paint onto a canvas and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody being accompanied by a group of men being slapped in the face as accompaniment.

I don’t want to steer anyone wrong, there is some disturbing tidbits in MONDO PAZZO as well.  A scene of a buddhist setting himself on fire sets the bar high for shock value, although I’m not too sure if it was real and Rage Against the Machine’s eponymous album was way fucking cooler looking.  But ol’ burning Buddha B is topped by an animal death onslaught beginning with hundreds of dead and suffering white flamingoes across a raped landscape in Africa that has been poisoned by all of the waste from a recently built soda factory.  Next it’s bird fighting in China, one lil’ guy has been fed graciously in a cage next to another bird who has been starved for two weeks.  And when they both get into the same cage you get Floyd Mayweather versus his girlfriend, but the bird’s outcome isn’t 90 days in jail and Justin Bieber hanging in your posse, it’s death.  After that is Beta fish fighting, some might not be too irked by this, but I had a Beta once that I enjoyed in it’s 10 square inch fishbowl full of murky water so this scene made me a little squeamish.  

MONDO PAZZO is a heady watch, and I could watch it repeatedly for the continual onslaught of taught humor, goofy 1960’s imagery, and a stellar soundtrack reminiscent of the lush orchestrations of Les Baxter.    

Blake and Jimmy’s Extreme-O-Gauge!

Violence/Gore: 2 out of 5, not crazy by todays standards but I bet this got some 60’s cocks up in knots!
Rape: 0 out of 0 
Animal Death: 3 out of 5, I’m always sensitive on this shit, but it wasn’t the worst by far.
Necrophilia: 0 out of 0, not even necrophagia either!
Torture: 0 ouf of 0
Overall Movie: 5 out of 5, not putting up scores on the Extreme-O-Gauge but MONDO PAZZO fucking rules!

Mondo Cane

MONDO CANE
By Jimmy Squarejaw

*WARNING*

All movies reviewed for SUNDAY SNUFF contain graphic depictions that may include rape, live animals being murdered, and extreme gore.  None of the writers condone such acts we just watch this shit. 

Well after all the bad news surrounding watching movies last week, we over at Y’all Are Dead’s Extreme Movie Department decided to give you folks a break.  Unbeknownst to me the movie I watched was also pretty tame so it might sooth the transition back into the wretched world of extreme cinema.  This week I chose the ol’ classic MONDO CANE from 1962.

I have heard murmurings about this movie since I was a video store hoping teen and I had always wanted to check it out since it was evidently a pre-cursor to FACES OF DEATH.  Well….what MONDO CANE actually is, is a sort of shock-u-mentary that has it’s place in a junior high school’s sociology class rather than a gore hounds video shelf.

The movie has a central theme of showing how archaic rituals and traditions relate to contemporary social norms.  After a bit you get the sense that the filmmakers are trying to paint a dreadful image of today’s Caucasian population and that aint’ too hard y’all.  A secondary theme shows all of the different roles animals play throughout the world relating to culture and cuisine and that plays off wonderfully from the translation of the title, “A Dog’s World.” 

A lot of the scenes in MONDO CANE were pretty interesting even if they weren’t horrifying.  A first choice bit for me is scene shot on an island poisoned by atomic energy.  Here birds live underground, fish jump out of the water and live in trees, and sea turtles lay eggs then beach themselves and die slowly because their internal navigation got fucked by atomic bomb testing. 

Another gem is an inside look in a foie gras farm in the foie gras capital of the world, Strasbourg, France.  Boy does that scene make me hate white people even more!  But at least geese can sit pleasantly knowing that the human race has adapted this custom for themselves with fast food and convenience shopping. 

And my favorite scene was at a pet cemetery in Los Angeles, which I didn’t even know existed back in the late 50’s and early 60’s.  Here we see a woman bawling as her poochy is lowered into a shallow grave plot.  The filmmakers add some choice footage of headstones for pets of the famous like Jack Warner, and the Jerry Lewis Family.  Hilariously the camera then turns to show random dogs shitting and pissing on the various headstones and kicking up grass onto them.  FUNNY!

I liked MONDO CANE a lot but not as a representative of extreme cinema.  I liked it because to me it seemed like a dark comedy that stung with cynicism and very well could have initiated the interest in shows like candid camera, funniest home videos, youtube and fail videos that we see today rampant in culture.  Another part of MONDO CANE I loved was the soundtrack.  Beautiful orchestration with a hint of cartoon-esque satire set to the barbaric rituals of the world!  Can’t beat hearing a zipper sound when a snake gets slit apart and it’s skin ripped off.  Trust me there is a lot more I can go on about this MONDO CANE but hopefully I’ve created enough intrigue to go out and rent the damn thing! 

Blake and Jimmy’s Extreme-O-Gauge!

 

Realistic Gore: 1 out of 5, unlike FACES OF DEATH, there really isn’t any.

Rape: 0 out of 0, but there is a scene where a woman breastfeeds a piglet!

Animal Death: 5 out of 5, there is a lot of different animals, some are cute, being killed or dying horribly!

Necrophilia: 0 out of 5, we’ll try and hit a homerun the next movie!

Torture: 2 out of 5, nothing too crazy.  Some inexperienced shark fishermen fuck with dying sharks and that poor damn sea turtle that wanders into the desert on the atomic island probably dies a slow torturous death. 
Overall Movie: 4 out of 5, there are better "Shockumentaries" out there, but this one had a really dark humor to it that a lot of others don't, and the music was AMAZING!