Savage Man, Savage Beast could alternately be viewed as the zenith and nadir of the Mondo cycle. Climati was Jacopetti & Prosperi’s cinematographer and the photography and use of montage on display here perhaps eclipses that of their works. A greater emphasis is given to placing the events of the film within a context, and the film more wholly espouses a critique of “modern” society than its predecessors. Though similar in style, Savage Man, Savage Beast has little in common with the lighthearted travelogue of curiosities that typified Mondo Cane I & II. The film’s sole concern is death; animal deaths primarily, but human death is used to extend the metaphor on occasion. It is for this reason that SMSB’s influence is possibly even more important Mondo Cane’s. This film is the bridge between Mondo and shockumentary—Faces of Death and the like that replaced Mondo in the late-seventies. Post-hardcore pornography, death was the only taboo on which Mondo and exploitation held a monopoly and Savage Man, Savage Beast is the first step towards the macabre monomania of later entries.
Savage Man, Savage Beast’s influence stretches beyond the Mondo/shock genre. Two “authentic” sequences in the film are key influences on Cannibal Holocaust’s film-within-a-film technique. Each is depicted as separate from the main film itself, with intertitles informing the audience of their origins and authenticity. The mauling of a tourist by a lion is captured both by his own camera and those by of onlookers. The sequence is by all accounts false, yet the amateurish quality, the “factual” context given by the narrator, and the point-of-view footage all make it difficult to readily dismiss upon a first viewing and it is still believed to be real by some. It would reappear in several films, either reimagined with different animals (Faces of Death) or as the same footage (Traces of Death). The alleged victim Pit Dernitz even has his own IMDB.com listing. Less convincing—but more important to Deodato’s film—is a later segment showing the murder, scalping, and castration of indigenous people by mercenaries from the “civilized world.” This portion was visually and thematically incorporated whole-cloth into a host of Italian cannibal cinema as it used in this context to establish the savagery of the modern man against nature and his fellow man.
It should be noted that print of the film on the Fortune 5 DVD excises the castration scene, stopping as the Indio’s legs are spread apart by the mercenaries. Uncut, that scene reveals its falsity soon after and this truncated print actually makes the segment seem more real; allowing the viewer to imagine an outcome rather than sit through Climati & Morra’s ludicrously excessive conclusion.
by David Carter | Source: Fortune 5 DVD
04 May 2008 5:19 PM | Submit Comment