Mondo film

Mondo film is a subgenre of exploitive documentary films. Many mondo films are made in a way to resemble a pseudo-documentary and usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, or situations. Common traits of mondo films include portrayals of foreign cultures (which have drawn accusations of ethnocentrism or racism),^[1] an emphasis on taboo subjects such as death and sex, and staged sequences presented as genuine documentary footage. Over time, the films have placed increasing emphasis on footage of the dead and dying (both real and fake).^[2]

The term mondo is Italian for 'world'. The term shockumentary is also used to describe the genre.

Mondo films began to soar in popularity in the 1960s with the releases of Mondo Cane (1962), Women of the World (1963) and Africa Addio (1966). The genre arguably reached its peak with Faces of Death (1978), a film that inspired a myriad of imitators, such as Banned from Television, Death Scenes, and the Traces of Death and Faces of Gore series.

Remove ads

Although earlier films such as Alessandro Blasetti's Europa di notte [it] (Europe By Night, 1959) and Luigi Vanzi's [it] Il mondo di notte [it] (World By Night, 1961) may be considered examples of the genre,^[3] the origins of the mondo documentary are generally traced to the 1962 Italian film Mondo Cane (A Dog's World—a mild Italian profanity) by Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi which was a commercial success.^[4]^[5]^[6]

Documentary films imitating Mondo Cane in the 1960s often included the term mondo in their titles, even if they were in English; examples include Mondo Bizarro, Mondo Daytona, Mondo Mod, Mondo Infame and Mondo Hollywood.^[7] Films outside the genre followed suit: Mondo Trasho, Mondo Weirdo: A Trip to Paranoia Paradise, Mondo Keyhole^[8] and Mondo Brutale (a German release of Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left^[9]) title themselves mondo, although none are mondo documentaries. Later in the decade, this naming convention began to fall out of favour and fewer mondo films identified themselves as such in their titles.^[7]

Filmmakers wanted to top each other in shock value to attract audiences. Cruelty to animals, accidents, tribal-initiation rites and surgeries are features of a typical mondo. Much of the action is staged, although the filmmakers may claim their goal is to document "reality". Subjects of mondo films include sex (Mondo Sex and Mondo Sexualis USA); celebrities (Mondo Elvis and Mondo Lugosi); youth culture (Mondo Teeno) and the gay subculture (Mondo Rocco).

Russ Meyer's film Mondo Topless was one of the few "documentaries" restricted to the old midnight movie circuit in the pre-VCR era; it explored strip clubs in 1960s San Francisco, at a time when strip clubs were a novelty in the United States, restricted to centers of port-city decadence (such as San Francisco). Other examples of this genre include Mondo New York by Harvey Keith, Mondo di Notte by Gianni Proia and Mondo Balordo by Roberto Bianchi Montero.

The 1980s saw a resurgence of mondo movies focusing almost exclusively on (onscreen) death, instead of world cultures. The Faces of Death series is a notable example of this type of mondo (or "death") movie. The producers used fake footage (passed off as real), but some of the footage was legitimate (including scenes of autopsies, suicides and accidents). The Italian cannibal film is arguably an offshoot of the mondo film.^[8]

The rare 1985 film Mondo Senza Veli ("World Without Veils or Mondo Fresh") was purported by viewers to feature at its end the brutal execution of a young Arab rapist by public rectal impalement. This episode was, however, believed to have been a staged execution by some viewers.

Mondo films in the 21st century feature gore, exemplified by the Faces of Gore and Traces of Death series. There is less fake footage, and many use news footage of accidents from East Asia.^{[citation needed]}

The late 2010s saw another resurgence, beginning with the Bootleg Death Tape series and Faces of Dying series from filmmaker Dustin Ferguson, which both involved various independent Directors from around the world.

A number of films have parodied the genre. Examples include Ricardo Fratelli's Mondo Ford, Mr. Mike's Mondo Video by Saturday Night Live's Michael O'Donoghue, and Is There Sex After Death? by Jeanne and Alan Abel. Mondo Beyondo spoofed the films' approach to titling, but was a parody of satellite television.^[10]

Remove ads

The original mondo film series was the Mondo Cane series by Gualtiero Jacopetti, Paolo Cavara, and Franco Prosperi. When this type of film proved successful, many imitators followed.