Search - Mondo Cane Collection - Limited Edition (Mondo Cane / Women of the World / Mondo Cane 2 / Africa Addio - English Version / Africa Addio - Directors' Cut / Goodbye Uncle Tom - English Version / Addio Zio Tom - Director's Cut / The Godfathers of Mondo on DVD

Powerfully compelling stuff!

Jeffrey Leach | Omaha, NE USA | 02/04/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Thanks to William Lustig and the friendly folks at Blue Underground, serious fans of cinematic weirdness can check out the numerous films of Franco Prosperi and Gualtiero Jacopetti. Who are Prosperi and Jacopetti, you ask? Good question. Before checking out this awesome eight disc limited edition set, I knew little about these two Italian filmmakers. I once heard about "Mondo Cane" years ago, but had never investigated further. Thanks to the voracious appetites awakened in the masses with the advent of DVD technology, I finally got the chance to acquaint myself with this film and the others that followed it. What an experience! The eight discs in the set consist of "Mondo Cane," "Mondo Cane 2," "Women of the World," "Africa Addio: The Director's Cut," "Africa Addio: English language version," "Goodbye Uncle Tom: English language version," "Addio Zio Tom: The Director's Cut," and an interview disc with the two directors created especially for this set called "The Godfathers of Mondo." So what does it all mean? According to these discs, the two filmmakers birthed a phenomenon that led directly to the current spate of reality-based media. Most of these films are documentary style epics showing our world--or at least how it looked back in the 1960s--in all of its bizarre and frivolous forms. "Mondo Cane," by the way, translates as "A Dog's World." An apt title when you see the films, to be sure.Start your experience with "Mondo Cane," "Mondo Cane 2," and "Women of the World." These are the first three films made by the two moviemakers, and are arguably the quirkiest. These three documentaries capture some of the oddest rituals practiced by peoples throughout the world. We see strange and bloody religious rituals in Italy, the grotesque lengths women will go to retain their youthful appearance, animals dying from radiation poisoning in the South Pacific, shark hunts, the horrific effects of Thalidomide, primitive peoples in New Guinea building shrines to airplanes, and so many other diverse oddities that it simply staggers the imagination. Many scenes are tame to modern eyes, some are still shocking, and several are just plain amusing. For example, you will laugh yourself sick over the "slap the faces" concert seen at the end of "Mondo Cane 2," although the participants look decidedly unhappy over their performance. There are plenty of extras on these three discs, including poster stills, trailers, and a few other worthwhile goodies; the picture quality is so good, so crystal clear, that the colors simply take your breath away.Perhaps the most controversial film made by Prosperi and Jacopetti was "Africa Addio" ("Farewell, Africa"), an attempt to document the changes in Africa during the time when the European imperial powers granted independence and withdrew from the continent. Ultimately accused of racism by critics for their unflinching portrait of a region gone mad, "Africa Addio" reveals in grisly detail the monstrous crimes committed by indigenous Africans against the remaining white settlers and the local wildlife. Large segments of the film show poachers brutally killing animals in the parks set up by Europeans. Moreover, the killing extends to humans as civil wars break out across the continent, with Africans killing each other, slaughtering Muslim minorities, and battling white mercenaries. Two executions caught on camera eventually resulted in charges against Gualtiero Jacopetti, who stood accused of orchestrating the killings for the camera (he was eventually exonerated). As tough as this film is to watch, try and look past the bloodshed and enjoy the panoramic scenery found in nearly every scene. Africa, despite all of its troubles, truly is a beautiful land.Nothing will prepare you for the nightmarish images in "Addio Zio Tom," (Goodbye Uncle Tom) a film made to counter charges of racism stemming from the "Africa Addio" experience. Fashioned as a sort of pseudo documentary where the filmmakers go back in time and visit the American South during the slave era, the movie is a grim look at the degrading conditions faced by Africans brought here as chattel. Every scene is absolutely mind blasting stuff, a horrific recreation of such abhorrent activities as the breeding of slaves, the formulation of scientific racism, hunting down and killing escaped slaves, the sickening conditions of the slave ships, the slave markets, and a billion other objectionable situations. The filmmakers based their film on written records and accounts of slave life, ultimately using the issue of slavery to make a statement about contemporary (1960s and 1970s) American race relations. Be sure and watch both versions: the English language cut is an entirely different film from the director's cut. Both are grueling experiences tempered only slightly by Riz Ortolani's FANTASTIC musical score (Ortolani scored "Mondo Cane" as well and snagged an Academy Award nomination for the song "More" from that film)."The Godfathers of Mondo" provides plenty of information about the collaboration between Prosperi and Jacopetti, Ortolani's musical work on the films, and a chronological discussion of each film. The impression I took away from the "Mondo Cane" films was the silliness of humanity in general, how we all do ridiculous things in our everyday life and never give any of it a second thought. At the same time, we are capable of particularly vicious activities that we never give a second thought to, either. With "Africa Addio" and "Addio Zio Tom" the whole scope of Prosperi and Jacopetti's documentary style changed. These films dwell on human beings as barbarians engaged in enormous bouts of cruelty and bloodshed. One of the filmmakers says in "The Godfathers of Mondo" that violence is a part of life that should appear in any attempt to document the human experience. I agree wholeheartedly, but that doesn't make these two films any easier to watch. Thanks, Blue Underground, for a truly memorable experience."

Excellent BoxSet from Blue Underground!!!

Roule Duke | the Green Inferno | 11/11/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There is no denying the importance of the films of Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi as they have influenced everything from hardcore horror films ie Cannibal Holocaust to broadcast news and the reality TV craze of today. Blue Underground in an ambitious move have put out this great 8 disc box set (limited to 10,000 copies) which should more than satisfy any mondo fan.The first two discs are Mondo Cane and Mondo Cane 2. Mondo Cane is certainly a milestone and in fact this entire genre of "shocking documentaries" which where made by Euro filmmakers is better known as the 'mondo' genre. Essentially Mondo Cane is a strange journey into some of the more bizarre and macabre places with the camera voyeuristically witnessing all kinds of oddities and bringing them back for the curious viewer. Mondo Cane 2 continues this tradition. The third disc Women of the World is similar but all the footage is tied together by a common theme of the varied roles women play in different parts of the world.The next 2 discs are the cut English language version of Africa Addio and the Italian language uncut version. Considered by many to be the greatest mondo doco of all time, the crew head of into Africa during it's transition from colonial control. While the majority of this focuses on the interactions of white and black and some long sequences on the fate of wildlife with laws protecting them diminished (countless animals are gunned down and speared in these scenes and hippos are dismembered) what sets this apart is the aftermath of several massacres caught on film. Later the crew hook up with a group of mercenaries (these nuts look as though they just walked of col. Kurtz's compound in 'Apocalypse Now') and go on a mission, filming a couple of executions.After the English language print was recut to exclude much political commentary and the censored version was released the film makers came under fire and accused of exploitation, racism and some even called them murders (accusing them of paying for the executions). Being labeled racists must have really angered Jacopetti and Prosperi resulting in them making Addio Zio Tom (Goodbye Uncle Tom) in order to prove that they are not racist.The next 2 discs are Goodbye Uncle Tom in the cut English version and Italian Language directors cut (this disc alone in worth the price of the set). The butchered English version done little to mend their reputations as in order to have it released alternate versions of scenes were shot and some extreme (but easily justified) politics were omitted. In essence it became a different movie.The director's cut of Goodbye Uncle Tom is one of the most amazing films I have ever seen. While some scenes are mondo filmed modern 70's events in America, the majority of this film is a departure of the mondo formula as they have made a regular motion picture with actors and sets under the pretense of them traveling back in time to shoot a mondo doco on the slave trade in America pre civil war. All these scenes are set up based on factual accounts and are unsparingly brutal and authentic, literally using 1000s of extras. The sweeping photography and epic scale of this film as we are taken into various aspects of slavery make for a simply breathtaking motion picture experience.Some people have claimed these scenes are a false representation, by pointing out silly little things like "there probably wouldn't be so many slaves in the house" and "they wouldn't be allowed to jump on the bed like that" as well as others who are infuriated by this film claiming that "it was never as depraved as this" but once again this film is clearly well researched quoting writers of the time and besides how could any people who kept slaves not be "depraved" anyway? Gone With the Wind this certainly is not. Roots, while well made and genuinely heartfelt, is pure sacarine by comparison. Steven Speilberg made the typically cowardly film 'Amistaad'. How can this courtroom drama depicting Europeans as being cruel to slaves and Americans liberating them via the righteous legal system be hailed as "tackling slavery head on" when it completely ignores the 200 years of slavery in America? Goodbye Uncle Tom is clearly a one of a kind spectacle and in my humble opinion the best disc in the set.The final disc is a doco on the filmmakers themselves, rounding out what is an awesome boxset!"

Perfection!

Mondo Vendo | Detroit, Michigan USA | 05/08/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I love this set. It is well worth every penny I spent. I watched the Mondo Cane films when I was a teenager and really enjoyed them.

These are the original Mondo films. These sparked the entire Mondo shockumentary genre. Some other quality masterpieces such as Shocking Asia I and II to the prolific garbage fake mondo documentaries.

The poor reputation of the fake mondo documentary has caused the Mondo Cane series to be tarnished with this image. What was enjoyable is that everything in Mondo Cane is real. The only things staged were still true but needed to fix other footage that was lacking and it was kept to an extreme minimum.

I had only heard of Mondo Cane I and II when I bought this but the other films are great surpise finds. Women of the World is a documentary done basically the same as the Mondo Canes.

Africa Addio is quite literally one of the greatest documentaries ever made. It is about the changes in Africa during the time when the British left. It spans the light-hearted of the calm of South Africans jumping on trampolines to showing dead bodies scattered in other African countries.

You see poacher's warehouses literally with football fields of elephant tusks stored in rows on the floor. You also see piles of human hands that occured in war atrocities. It is quite an honest documentary that shows what others would choose not to.

Goodbye Uncle Tom is an extremely graphic drama made to be as if it was a real documentary during slavery times. There is tons of full nudity male and female and extremely graphic things depicted I won't describe here. Jacopetti and Prosperi made this to fight charges that they were rascists which they were accused of regarding Africa Addio. (Why Im Not Sure). This instead caused quite the opposite causing them to be labeled extreme rascists. This is one of the most notorious films ever made. I really was surprised by the graphic nature of what I've seen and I am the kind that wonders what is shocking in movies like Bloodsucking Freaks or I Spit On Your Grave. This wasn't shocking to me but I was surprised that they went so far with this movie.

The last disc is a documentary on Jacopetti and Prosperi. A highlight is them talking about almost getting executed while filming Africa Addio. They were going to be lined up for execution when someone stated they are not "whites" (meaning British) and were Italians.

This is a prize in my DVD collection. One that I will watch over and over. In my opinion, Blue Underground is better than Criterion and Anchor Bay and this set is outstanding. I only hope they take interest in and are able to release the Shocking Asia series.

If you only heard of Mondo Cane and don't want to spend the price for this set just for those 2 films, get this. The other films are just as good if not better.

2 of the films are the original language director's cut. 5 great films. A great documentary on these great filmmakers. And two original language versions (which differ greatly from the English language versions)

This is limited edition and I can't imagine anything this good coming around often!"

Puts the "Real" in Reality TV

Max Fire | California | 08/16/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"When I was a child living in Africa there had always been this almost mythical rumor that a movie existed that chronicled the atrocities that happened when the Europeans left Africa. The movie was censored. Seeing it for myself, well all of the rumors didn't prepare me for what I saw.

These pioneers of shockumentary actually took the time and risked their lives to show what was happening in their world through a camera lens that never favored one side or the other. All of the DVDs in the 8 disk pack are thought provoking. Leaving you with a sense that what ever you do see (headlines or news) in our world may not be the entire story.

Unfortunately I think that these classics may be overshadowed by fake documentaries or ones where the director asks leading questions. This is not the case in the Mondo Cane Collection. The collection is a little pricey, but well worth the education."