Director: Ruggero Deodato
Year Released: 1980
Rating: 2.0
Infamous B-nasty about documentary filmmakers that visit a cannibal tribe, act like ugly Americans and end up as food. It's not intelligent enough to work as a subversive movie (like Bob Clark's allegorical Deathdream, for example) - for starters, why would a group of "highly praised" filmmakers behave like a bunch of high schoolers in front of the camera? Further, how can a movie be so critical of the Mondo pictures ... and yet remain a Mondo picture itself (arguably the Mondo picture to top all Mondo pictures!)? There are valid points about voyeurism - the fact that there's a film within a film (with commentary!) makes this especially clear - and some eerie reminders of the atrocities committed by U.S. troops during Vietnam (raping the native women, burning their village, killing their animals) although I can't guarantee that was Deodato's intent. It's visceral and creepy, but in the cheapest of all possible ways; in the discussion of the role of the spectator in the spectacle, it's Exhibit A.
