Les négriers

MONDO CANE and AFRICA ADDIO creators Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco E. Prosperi take us on a journey through time, back to the mid 1800's, not too long before the civil war. The movie is styled like one of their previous documentaries, with actors talking to the camera as though being interviewed, and just about every form of human cruelty being enacted on the Africans who have been dragged overseas to become slaves.

The movie is certainly disturbing, and it did indeed enrage me that ancestors of mine took part in this treatment of fellow human beings. But the movie lost me whenever it tried to create a parallel between the climate between blacks and whites in the 1800s and the 1960s.

Not that there weren't (and, unfortunately, still are) problems with racial tension in this country, but the movie seems to think that the average black person is still a savage at heart, just waiting for the right moment to break out an axe and slaughter the first white person he comes across. The movie climaxes with a radical black man reading The Diary of Nat Turner and imagining doing just that, including a horrific moment in which he smashes a baby's head against the wall.

To me, the movie seems to have a negative opinion of just about everyone. Obviously, due to its decidedly anti-slavery stance, the slave traders are viewed as sick, inhuman monsters with only the faintest mask of civility on the surface. But the African characters are portrayed largely as ignorant buffoons, too dim-witted to understand what's happening to them.

Later, during the modern day scenes, the sole black character is shown as having a major chip on his shoulder that has driven him nearly insane with rage, while the white people are a bunch of care-free bubble heads. Such generalizations and lack of depth or character development greatly lessens the power the movie may have had.

But, as a purely gut-busting exercise in sleaze and disgusting imagery, GOODBYE UNCLE TOM sits confidently alongside other such gross-out movies as CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, SALO and MEN BEHIND THE SUN. Also, like those movies, GUT (hmmm, interesting abbreviation) goes so outrageously over-the-top in depicting its atrocities, most of the movie's true power is lost, and it becomes little more than a freak show.

I hesitantly recommend the movie for fans of sick cinema as a curiosity. I warn pretty much everyone else to stay far, far away.

I've seen a lot of offensive films in my time, from Cannibal Holocaust to A Siberian Film, but this one is easily the most tasteless, offensive, unpleasant films I have ever seen. Yet somehow it is also riveting, like watching a car crash unfold in slow motion. Several times I was on the verge of turning it off in sheer disgust, but found myself holding off, just to see how much more depraved it could get.

The "plot", such as it is, concerns a pair of time-travelling reporters from Italy going back to the south of the USA during the heyday of slavery, to conduct a "inquest" into slavery. Presenting itself as a condemnation of slavery, it instead revels in the unpleasantness, delivering atrocity upon atrocity with a smirk on it's face. The horror inflicted on the slaves in Django Unchained pales in comparison to the never-ending parade of unpleasantries served up here. I suppose it does present a view of what slaves went through at the time, but it's hard to feel that they are condemning the acts when all the slaves are presented as little more than dumb animals.

Amongst the dubious "delights" on offer are rape, castration, paedophilia and the truly horrible scene where the poor reporter is "seduced" by a 13 year old black prostitute. It's made so much worse as everything is presented as though we are seeing it through their eyes.

It's certainly unforgettable, and if you're not easily offended or squeamish, it's worth watching once, even if it's just to see how low Italian exploitation cinema managed to stoop. You might need a good shower afterwards, however.

Rating: 7/10 just for the sheer gall of the film.

Goodbye Uncle Tom is a downright jaw-dropping and surprisingly professional production in the Mondo Cane series. Terrifically shot documentary-style, this film explores the interaction between the races in modern America. Slavery, Black Rage, White Oppression...Jacopetti and Prosperi are all showing it uncensored and without mercy. It's repulsive, shocking and the violence subtly get more under your skin as opposed to the average teenage horror slasher. The inhumanity of previous generations makes you bow your head in shame. Guided by a thrilling Riz Ortolani score (perhaps known best for his Cannibal Holocaust music) Goodbye Uncle Tom shows how black people are being exploited, raped and killed for no reason other than being "inferior". The films opens with a truly atmospheric portrait of how Martin Luther King's death mobilized the black community. Right from that moment, you just know that you're about to see a film that is a lot more intelligent than it seems and ahead of its time when it comes to being provocative. A history lesson that sticks to you! Of course, because of its realism, it cannot be recommended to everyone. Goodbye Uncle Tom is better not watched by the faint-hearted. Highly recommended piece of revolutionary cinema!

The story goes that when this played Times Square it caused a riot. I have no idea if its true or not, but if it did happen I can see why.

The film is an examination of race relations that focuses on slavery. As an indictment of the institution of slavery this film can not be topped. This is a nightmarish look at what slave mills must have been like almost 200 years ago.

The film exists in two versions that are very different different, and if you ever wanted to see how one film could end up as two different films, look no farther than this film (both versions are in the Mondo Cane box set)

Both films contain much of the same footage cut for different effect.The original Italian cut deals more heavily with race relations now, while the American version deals more with the slavery aspect. The final moments of both versions makes more sense in context of the Italian version since in the final moments we see that in many ways things have not gotten all that much better for the black race. Both films also have a good amount of footage unique to that version. I doubt seriously that the footage could be combined to make one super film since you'd end up with a third film with a third point of view.

I like both versions of the film. I think that right or wrong this is a film that will get you talking and thinking and wondering, which is what the film is suppose to do. I can't say that one is better than the other, both are flawed, however both should be seen, preferably with in a day or so of each other since the duel versions play off each other in unexpected ways.

See these films., But be prepared to get angry. You may not get through them, you may not like them, but you will be provoked into a reaction on some level. For better or worse you will be challenged and moved which is what the point of the film is.

9 out of 10.

Addio Zio Tom: 7/10: Well they don't make them like this anymore and lets face it they never really did. This is really three separate films brought together in a blender set on random. The first film is a highly effective expose on slave treatment and the slave trade in the old south (the slave ship scenes blows Hollywood fare like Armistad out of the water). Using a cast of thousands and exposing practices such as selective breeding that are politely not discussed on American shores (just ask Jimmy the Greek) it simply is one of the most realistic display's of 18th and 19th century slave life ever shown on film.

Then there is a second film which is a dated, and looking back rather silly collection, of news footage from the late sixties and early seventies that documents race riots with all the participants speaking in Italian creating an almost Woody Allen feel to the dub (It gives What's up Tiger Lilly a run for its money complete with ragtime music cementing the silliness of what should be serious proceedings.)

The last movie is a sexploitation film dealing largely with Mandingo fantasies and containing a copious amount of child porn. (I guess National Geographic rules apply when showing thirteen year old black children naked). Needless to say tasteful does not enter into the conversation. Political correctness is shattered so badly one must feel for those sensitive souls that can't laugh at ridiculousness of the manipulation.

Making matters worse the three films are intertwined together seemingly at random with comic buffoonery breaking out during serious scenes (A slave auction is apt to turn into a Benny Hill episode for no apparent reason) and poorly done black revenge fantasies coming, narratively at least, out of nowhere. Anti-white, anti-black and for the sake of inclusion anti-Semitic they once again simply don't make them like this anymore. (It's highly illegal for one thing)

Overlong by at least an hour and very poorly thought out in places Addio Zio Tom wears out its welcome but for a short while at least it exposes the truth and makes one think.