Savana violenta

This movie is just another graphic documentary of so-called "real deaths and acts by real people" with tons of warnings on the box. This movie was banned in over 40 countries (as it says on box) and you'll be able to see why. It can be disturbing to some, incredibly graphic to others, and boring and pointless to some also. Over-all, this is a pretty good movie with some taste. This one also relates to the popular death documentaries: Faces of Death. Those are some good movies. Savana Violenta (or called Mondo Violence) is pretty good and if you want to rent it, good luck trying to find it in rental stores. It's a pretty unpopular movie but deserves some credit.

Although mondo movies were first popularised in the 1960s, they quickly lost favour with audiences, partly through lack of material and partly because the genre reached a logical conclusion of "documentary" violence with AFRICA ADDIO in 1969. THIS VIOLENT WORLD was part of the resurgence of mondo cinema in Italy in the mid-to-late 1970s, which was spear-headed by the "rival" teams of Climati/Morra and the Castiglioni brothers. Both were intent on out-doing the other by showing increasingly graphic scenes of violence and sex, many of them faked but all of them amongst the most harrowing sequences ever committed to celluloid.

THIS VIOLENT WORLD is actually quite restrained compared with Climati and Morra's preceding mondo, SAVAGE MAN... SAVAGE BEAST. As usual, the majority of the footage is made up with animal killings of various types. We also get to see fakirs cutting off tongues/piercing themselves, tribal rites involving abortion, and other such "curiosities". The movie concludes with a seemingly real firing squad sequence.

Mondo cinema is certainly a weird concept and THIS VIOLENT WORLD maintains the genre standards admirably. Semi-racist commentary and exploitation/misrepresentation of other cultures aside, the photography is actually quite atmospheric and imaginative in places, and the De Angelis soundtrack is a good one. However, nothing can take away from the fact that this, as with most mondos, is inherently an incredibly boring movie. It is far more interesting as a strange example of the direction of the Italian exploitation film industry than as a film in its own right.

The most interesting aspect of this flick remains the obvious influence it had over Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. HOLOCAUST was always intended to be a critique of the mondo school of film-making, but there are specific sequences here that are so close to Deodato's classic that it is obviously more than coincidence. The abortion sequence (where a woman is pushed out of a tree to induce miscarriage, and then a fetus is pulled from her and buried in the mud) clearly was an enormous inspiration to the similar scene in HOLOCAUST. In another scene, a group of native women bathe with a white man and fiddle around with his penis in curiosity- again, a scene that was included in Deodato's epic! It's interesting to see precisely where Deodato took inspiration for his critique, yet managed to work it into a narrative.

Savana Violenta, a.k.a. Mondo Violence, from start to finish is a huge disappointment. The box boasts that the film is banned in over forty countries, yet there is very little here to be offended by. Eighty percent of the movie is spent watching stock footage of animals chasing and eating each other, all of which can be seen on television. There are a few scenes of hunting and traditional animal sacrifices, but most feel very staged and out of place. If you're looking for something a little bit more extreme you might want to check out the Faces of Death series and give this film a wide berth at the video store.

Antonio Cllimati, co-director, co-writer and cinematographer, was also cinematographer on the classic flick, Goodbye Uncle Tom 1971.

Mario Morra, co-director, co-writer and editor, was also editor on the classic flicks, The Battle of Algiers 1966 and Wild Beasts 1984.

They have both created another gem in This Violent World.

I enjoyed the bizarre and violent footage from various countries around the Globe.

If you enjoyed this as much as I did then check out other classic documentary flicks, The Killing of America 1982, Earthlings 2005, Inside Job 2010, Religulous 2008, Powaqqatsi 1988, Samsara 2011 Planet Ocean 2012, Only the Dead 2015, The War You Don't See 2010, Citizenfour 2014, The War on Democracy 2007, Human Flow 2017, A Billion Lives 2016, Zero Days 2016, Terra 2015, The Bomb 2016, Nazi Concentration and Prison Camps 1945, Islam: The Untold Story 2012, Finke: There & Back 2018 and Baraka 1992.