Dolce e selvaggio

SWEET AND SAVAGE represents Climati and Morra's final attempt at Mondo cinema. Having been seriously stung by previous criticisms of their film-making and of the genre itself in the past, it's surprising to see that once again they happily exhibit scene after scene of almost unwatchable nastiness.

SWEET AND SAVAGE contains a large bulk of out-takes and reused footage from Climati and Morra's previous mid-70s Mondo efforts, and predictably follows the same format. Accompanied by a pretentiously epic sound-track, the beauty and the savageness of nature are juxtaposed in a vain attempt to justify the violence on display. However, the more pleasant scenes just come across as twee and make the disturbing footage even more distasteful. As usual, scenes of animal slaughter make up the majority of the movie, but there are also a few faked and unfaked sequences involving humans. Tightrope walkers and stunt-men fall to their deaths; a corpse of a Tibetan monk is hacked up and eaten by vultures atop a mountain (surprisingly, this footage looks genuine); and in the "stand out" scene, a man is tied to two trucks and has his arm torn away. The final scene is clearly fake but that didn't stop it (as well as much of the other footage in this movie) turning up in Damon Fox's appalling TRACES OF DEATH series...

For me, the aspect of the Mondo genre that is so fascinating yet also indefensible is the misrepresentation and misinformation that these supposed "documentaries" push on the viewer. SWEET AND SAVAGE is no exception. For instance, many of the scenes have been clearly over-dubbed using actors voices in hilariously un-PC ways. In one scene, Africans are shown snapping the necks of ostriches, but these men have been over-dubbed with ebonics-laden, deep South accents. I can't help but laugh at such moments, but it is one of the aspects of these movies that is the most distasteful.

So all in all, this is the close of a fascinating and controversial chapter in Italian exploitation cinema. Saying that, I doubt it is for everyone.

On the verge of mass extinction and deforestation, you can look back to see these mondo films as evidence of where the human race went wrong. Where else can you see an animal rescue guy jump out of a helicopter on to the back of an antelope, to supposedly save them, and take to a wild life park. Steve Irwin hasn't got a look in. Obviously horribly out dated principles. The juxtaposition of elements of western civilisation with those of tribal populations is some what philosophical. The camera crew are photojournalists, much like the war photographers, who go to the most primitive and dangerous places to observe the inhabitants & their rituals.

It is very shocking, but what I respect about these mondo movies is they show life as how it is. Now we live in a bubble, protected from what is happening in war zones around the world; to the horrors inflicted on wild life etc. We live in a sugar coated consumerist version of reality. We can not even openly speak what is happening with in our on societies. This is raw stuff, and I doubt little if any of it is faked for show. It is the essence of the documentary to provide that lens to view in to those areas of life we dare not cross, or it is not feasible to do so. When some one applies constraints on what you see a documentary it will be critically acclaimed, defined art house-but when you show it in all its graphic detail, the majority of people just don't want to know, define the flick as "exploitation". They bury their heads in the sand, like the the ostrich that features in this movie. I like Mondo docs, but even I get to put them in a box, detach myself from reality. I view them as the product of a past age, pretend to myself that these cruelties exhibited are of a time past, and perhaps humans are not like that anymore.

In the age of the camera phone, everybody is essentially a documentary film maker, and it highlights the shield of censorship we live under, where we are unaware of the large quantities of disturbing captured content which must be out there.

Is this made for exploitation purposes: yes! However, it is a documentary film undoubtedly, and documentaries are a product of their environment. Should documentaries about the dark side of human nature not be made? I think they should, and are as every bit as important in the field of documentary film making as, take Attenborough for example. Even Attenborough is taken a bit of a u-turn now, and devoting his later years to warn us about the for ever impending environmental catastrophe looming ahead. This makes some interesting early commentary on this subject, and also war politics (at least in the English language version I seen on Youtube it did). It is not for the documentary film maker to justify its subjects, as it is the documentary film makers job to capture reality, not shape it. Some mondo films are of very bad taste, and it is the direction of the movies which is partly responsible for these. With this movie, I did not feel this way about this movie. It is very graphically violent. You have to say that this documentary team are very well travelled, and the documentary as a whole provides some thought provoking insights in to not only the struggle to live, for all species, including ourselves, but natures propensity for violence and destruction. Recommend for doc buffs.