Il mondo di notte numero 3

Before TV and video bringing us the strangeness of the world there was the travel film which brought the sites into local theaters. Then in the 1960's we had the travel film spawn the Mondo movie where all of the weird things in the world were brought to your local theater. Most of the films were an odd mix of real and staged events (many mid-cycle films were all staged). Most have dry witty or pithy commentary by a well known star.

The films were mostly of the sort of thing where "if you've seen one you've seen them all". Ecco rises some how above the standard rut of the Mondo movies. Yes, there are things to turn your stomach and others to make you question if its real or not, as all of these films do, but Ecco has one thing the others don't and that is George Saunders doing the narration.

Saunders was a master of dry wit and his delivery works wonders with the material. In all of the other mondo movies you remember the momentary bits that shocked you, but here you remember Saunders voice, with his inflections revealing infinitely more than the words do. You want to hear his narration which seems to rise above the material.

For the life of me I couldn't tell you one thing that happens in this movie, but I remember the voice. Its the voice that makes me want to watch this every now and again while almost every other mondo movie I've seen could disappear and I wouldn't care.

If you must see one mondo movie in your life see this one. If you want to see one that doesn't suck see this one.

8 out of 10.

1st watched 1/20/2003 - 2 out of 10(Dir-Gianni Proia): Weird concoction of rituals, religions & customs held in many different parts of the world that I believe is intended to shock you. This it does, but I couldn't figure out the connections or the reason for the Italian filmmaker to make something like this. There is a variety of strange human rituals including women in Las Vegas gauking over muscle-bound men to women performing castration by teeth on reindeer in the northern Icelands and then getting married to men who choose them after this is done. I could go on and on but it's not really needed. If your idea of a good time is watching naked Japanese men trouncing each other for the sake of a possible good year according to their priests or seeing chicken-blood being spattered on a naked woman as part of a satatic ritual then by all means watch this movie. For others who just want entertained and not disgusted, stay away from this.

I don't know much about mondo except that it's mostly exploitation, sometimes racist, and occasionally just stagey lies. However, Ecco is highly entertaining in its variety of rituals from different cultures all over the world. I had to Google the reindeer thing, and it's actually true (or once was before it was outlawed). There's also some reasonably tame but historically accurate presentations of burlesque dancing. This isn't the sort of documentary that you could share with the whole family, because of the adult content and also because with mondo cinema it's unclear what is real and what is exaggerated or staged. But this one's fun!