This got me thinking about mockumentaries, Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez's The Blair Witch Project, Jaume Balaguero & Paco Plaza's [Rec]. All mockumentaries, however, I though about the fact that these films are shite, I really hate The Blair Witch Project as a film! So I thought about the one mockumentary that I love to pieces. One of the most controversial films ever made, Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust.
For those of you who have never even heard about this notorious Video Nasty, I will give a quick outline of the plot, however I really want to concentrate on what makes this film so controversial.
Basically, the film is split into two parts. The first part of the film follows A New York anthropologist named Professor Harold Monroe who travels to the wild, inhospitable jungles of South America to find out what happened to a documentary film crew that disappeared while filming a documentary about primitive cannibal tribes. Monroe encounters two tribes, the Yacumo and the Yanomamo. While under the hospitality of the latter tribe, he finds the remains of the crew and several reels of their undeveloped film.
This is were the second part of the film starts. Upon returning to New York, Monroe views the film in detail, featuring the director Alan Yates, his girlfriend Faye Daniels, cameramen Jack Anders and Mark Tomaso. After a few days of travelling, the film details how the crew staged all the footage for their documentary by terrorizing and torturing the natives. Despite Monroe's objections, the television studio, bastards that they all are, still wishes to air the footage as a legitimate documentary. In order to change their minds, Monroe shows the station's executives the film's final reels, so they could see first hand how the crew's fate came to be. It makes for tasty stuff!
I just want to add that Riz Ortolani’s original soundtrack adds to the chilling atmosphere to the film…check it out! (See the end of the review for a sample.)
When Cannibal Holocaust was released on February 7th, 1980, in Milan, the initial reaction was positive from the audience. Most audiences at the time seem to be able to stomach the Video Nasties at the time better than in the coming years. Even director Sergio Leone (The Good, The Bad And The Ugly) wrote a letter to Deodato saying,
"Dear Ruggero, what a movie! The second part is a masterpiece of cinematographic realism, but everything seems so real that I think you will get in trouble with all the world."
Leone was not wrong. Ten days after the release of Cannibal Holocaust it was seized by the Italian courts and Deodato was arrested and charged with Obscenity. That was not the worse of his problems. Later, Deodato was charged again with several counts of murder. The courts believed that several of the actors were killed to make the movie seem real, a snuff film in effect. To make matters worse for Deodato, the actors had signed contracts with him and the producers ensuring that they would not appear in any type of media for one year after the film's release in order to promote the idea that the film was true. Thus, when Deodato claimed that he had not killed the group, questions arose as to why the actors were in no other media if they were alive. Fortunately he was able to get in contact with the actors and the charges were dropped.
Deodato continued to be challenged about Cannibal Holocaust. He had to take the main actors on a television interview to clear his name to the courts however he still had to convince the courts about the special effects of the films, especially the ‘impaling scene’ and the cutting off of Yate’s penis. All the special effects were explained to the courts, with testimonies and photos, however the courts still wanted to ban the film due to the horrific, real, killing of several animals.
In the film, several animals are killed for entertainment. Personally, I don’t condone the killing of anything for the sake of putting bums in seats, but what the hey, it ain’t my film -
- A coatimundi is stabbed multiply times in the neck.
- A large spider is killed with a machette.
- A large snake is killed with a machette.
- Two squirrel monkeys have their faces cut off and their brains are then eaten by the Vietnamese actors who consider the monkey brains to be a delicacy. The reason they used two was because the first time they did it the camera operator did not capture all the acquired shots. (Heads up for camera specialists in the class, get it right or they kill a monkey.
- A pig is kicked and then shot with a rifle.
- A large turtle is decapitated and then really eaten by the actors.
Due to the courts ruling, Deodato, the producers, the screenwriters, United Artists representatives were all given a four month suspension. Deodato did say after sometime that his actions were pretty stupid.
It really is an unbelievable film, it even helped, or not helped, path the way to reality television. Cannibal Holocaust was the first film bold enough to suggest that the stuff we see on the news is every bit as staged as what’s shown in the cinema. Please, I urge you to give it a chance. It is a great part of Italian cinema history. Cannibal Holocaust, once scene, cannot be unseen. Thank Christ for that!
"Better to rest in peace in the warm body of a friend than in the cold ground."
For the trailer - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lSvq2GE2YCs
For Riz Ortolani’s Cannibal Holocaust theme - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kf1Vt6r-sj8
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