The cruel acts of animal poaching and violence, executions, and tribal slaughtering, all taking place on the African continent.The cruel acts of animal poaching and violence, executions, and tribal slaughtering, all taking place on the African continent.The cruel acts of animal poaching and violence, executions, and tribal slaughtering, all taking place on the African continent.
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Featured reviews
The atrocities against the animals in this documentary absolutely made me sick. Animals are slaughtered relentlessly, cruelly and for no reason other than the sport of it. I wanted those wild animals to rip their killers to shreds. At least once it would have been nice to see one of the poachers ripped to shreds by the elephants, lions and hippos.
It never ceases to sicken me how a man with a gun thinks he has really accomplished something by shooting an animal. Watching the men stand proudly with their gun over the carcass of an animal for a photo just makes me sick. They should all have been fed to the lions.
This documentary proves one thing and one thing only. Humans are the sickest and cruelest animals on the planet.
Very very very impressive photography and - above all - editing. It *is* in parts very gruesome (esp. animal lovers should be prepared for some depictions of mindless cruelty) - but it also shows beautiful things, black, white, animal and floral.
That this is hard to come by today I can understand, it is just impossible politically incorrect (and must have been so at the time too). The makers of this movie seem to sympathise with everyone and no-one
I've watched the three versions of this film and I'm a fan of all of them. Interestingly the one I like the least is the original cut of the film which has several snide comments and re-dubbed voices that make the film truly rude and cruel for no good reason. The original cut goes out of its way to have a holier than thou view that is missing from both of the English cuts. The original cut also has several more minutes of animal cruelty that is completely uncalled for.
This film ran into serious trouble upon its original release because charges were brought, though later found to be false, that the film makers had paid some of the soldiers to kill some one so that they could film it. (this charge would form the basis for The Wild Eye, a fictional film about the making of a mondo movie made by another Mondo Cane director) Considering all of the the death and destruction in this film I find it hard to believe that anyone would have had to have been paid to kill anyone.
Yes, its a tough film, but it leaves no one with clean hands, even the film makers.
See this film. It will make you think.
All of these things, and many more, are followed by this classic Mondo film. It's flawed (its narrative is shamelessly colonialist, avoiding all the atrocities that the colonizers committed and the actual causes for nationalism that led to these tragedies), but this is Heart of Darkness for the film generation: It is a glimpse into the worst that Africa has to offer, and nobody comes out looking good.
Highly recommended, if you got the stomach to watch some of the most senseless butchery ever recorded on film. If only these guys had done Vietnam.
Did you know
- TriviaThree well-known persons appear uncredited: Julius Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania, Richard Gordon Turnbull, the last colonial governor of Tanganyika, and Moise Tshombe, a Congolese politician who returned to Congo to "stop the rebellion" and died three years after this film was made.
- GoofsThere's a scene that shows bodies lined on the ground outside because of lack of space in the morgue, and are surrounded by birds. The subtitles say "The vultures are patiently waiting for their turn, after the operation." The birds are not vultures, but pelicans.
- Quotes
[last lines]
Narrator: At the end of the Ice Age, a warm current broke this little colony of penguins off of the glaciers of the south and carried them here on huge rafts of ice that melted in the sun. Isolated and without the possibility of returning to their original homeland, they have for centuries been strangers in a strange land that is becoming more and more heated and hostile toward them surrounded by a sea that grows higher and more and more filled with rage. Perhaps a little peace will descend upon these waters sooner or later, before a wave stronger than the others tears them away forever from this last rock that forms the geographic end of the Dark Continent.
- Alternate versionsBefore receiving a UK cinema certificate the film was cut by over 12 minutes and was missing all footage of rotting human corpses and animal killings.
- ConnectionsEdited into Les derniers cris de la savane (1975)
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