Mondo Cane

Given our recently focus on ethnographic films, I’d like to recommend Mondo Cane, a documentary made in 1962 by Italian filmmakers Paolo Cavara and Gualtiero Jacopetti. The film, credited with creating the “shockumentary” genre, documents various bizarre rituals across the globe and juxtaposes them in a somewhat whimsical narrative fashion. And although the film is composed of sequences that are politically objectionable, overly sensationalist and of questionable authentic ethnographic merit, Mondo Cane's faults highlight the limitations and potential pitfalls ethnographic documentary filmmaking. Despite its flaws, however, it remains fascinating both as a film text and a relic of cinematic history.