Made by one of the makers of Mondo Cane this is a biting attack of not only his partners, but also on the genre itself.
The film begins as a film maker and his party end up stranded in the desert. All seems lost and everyone begins to show sign of dehydration. Ghoulishly the film maker begins to film everyone's last moments, or not because its discovered that the stranding was staged to get footage for the next mondo film. From that point on the film becomes a world trek as the film maker pursues a girl and attempts to get the next great sequence. It all ends in Viet Nam during the height of the war.
Its not hard to guess that the film is a nasty jab by director Paolo Cavara at his Mondo Cane co-directors, who had just run into trouble about a killing that appears in their Africa Addio, since much of the film is a quest to film some one die on camera.
Ultimately this film is a mixed bag. While I have no doubt that much of what is shown is the way things were done, it often comes across as the pot calling the kettle black with mondo-esque sequences appearing within the fictional frame work. While I honest believe that Cavara disavows his Mondo days, I think he would also love the success that his former friends briefly met as kings of the Mondo world.
Reservations aside this is a very good movie in its own right and should you come across it you should see it, especially if you've ever watched a Mondo movie and wondered how it was done.
The film begins as a film maker and his party end up stranded in the desert. All seems lost and everyone begins to show sign of dehydration. Ghoulishly the film maker begins to film everyone's last moments, or not because its discovered that the stranding was staged to get footage for the next mondo film. From that point on the film becomes a world trek as the film maker pursues a girl and attempts to get the next great sequence. It all ends in Viet Nam during the height of the war.
Its not hard to guess that the film is a nasty jab by director Paolo Cavara at his Mondo Cane co-directors, who had just run into trouble about a killing that appears in their Africa Addio, since much of the film is a quest to film some one die on camera.
Ultimately this film is a mixed bag. While I have no doubt that much of what is shown is the way things were done, it often comes across as the pot calling the kettle black with mondo-esque sequences appearing within the fictional frame work. While I honest believe that Cavara disavows his Mondo days, I think he would also love the success that his former friends briefly met as kings of the Mondo world.
Reservations aside this is a very good movie in its own right and should you come across it you should see it, especially if you've ever watched a Mondo movie and wondered how it was done.