Movie of the day : Cannibal Holocaust
Blah. I take back what I said. Go get a cup of cocoa and watch "Hatchet for a Honeymoon". Just don't watch "Cannibal Holocaust"
The basic plot sounds great: Documentary team goes out to the jungle in South America to research modern cannibals, they disappear. Anthropologist goes after them, comes back with their footage and then the debate begins, while we slowly see pieces of the footage, if it is important work or sensationalism. The basic idea is visible too: Deodato was offended by news footage and it's goriness and wanted to question the motivations of the people who make this footage as well as anthropological movies and anthropology in general.
Unfortunately for a movie concerned with truth vs. sensationalism it gets pretty bogged down in sensationalism. Yes, unnecessary sex/nudity. Yes, super cannibal gore. Yes, graphic animal manglings. Yes Most. Unnecessary. Rapes. Ever. It's got some pretty disgusting stuff.
Keep in mind this comes from the man who enjoys AND owns the movie with one of the longest rape scenes ever.
But I digress. The movie fails in it's plot involving "jerk off 20 something documentarians fucking with natives" in the same way a lot of the modern horror-snuff does. It's characters start off with a motivation but so quickly turn to nonsense brutality that it's unbelievable such characters exist and punishing them really doesn't do much for me. I get the exploitive anthropology angle but I still don't understand why they felt gang-raping the natives helped them at all. Or why the giggly girlfriend didn't get offended until her boyfriend tried to rape the girl...
Characters can't stand as evil or mean something unless they are understandable. The more relatable they are the more shocking it is to us that yes, indeed, we could be like them. If you just make insano monsters you can't say anything about anything.
Otherwise, I have to say for one of the goriest films of all time, the gore wasn't that amazing. I can see why people believed the infamous pike body for sure and surely that must have been why the director went on trial for killing the actors (if that actually happened...stupid internet). But the important thing to remember, which I understand now, is this film is one of "the most controversial ever made" and banned in most countries (including the country that produced it) for its rampant cruelty to animals. Again, it seemed like he wanted to say something about cannibalism vs. our willingness to fuck up turtles, muskrats and monkies but by cracking open a turtle (gross), cutting up a muskrat and CUTTING THE FACE OFF A MONKEY (the cute kind) it's all kind of lost in the wash of his own animal cruelty.
Seriously, if this movie could've made it's points in a less hypocritical manner and had slightly more understandable characters it could have been of massive importance. It had a lot to say well before other people started saying the same things.
As it is though, it's a crazy gross wannabe snuff movie (there isn't a single video on youtube I feel comfortable linking to due to violent content) that makes me want to join PETA.
It does have a wickedly inappropriate soundtrack though which I'd suggest anyone check out.
TOMORROW: David Lynch's "Inland Empire"...Dear Dave, please no rapes!
Cam
Blah. I take back what I said. Go get a cup of cocoa and watch "Hatchet for a Honeymoon". Just don't watch "Cannibal Holocaust"The basic plot sounds great: Documentary team goes out to the jungle in South America to research modern cannibals, they disappear. Anthropologist goes after them, comes back with their footage and then the debate begins, while we slowly see pieces of the footage, if it is important work or sensationalism. The basic idea is visible too: Deodato was offended by news footage and it's goriness and wanted to question the motivations of the people who make this footage as well as anthropological movies and anthropology in general.
Unfortunately for a movie concerned with truth vs. sensationalism it gets pretty bogged down in sensationalism. Yes, unnecessary sex/nudity. Yes, super cannibal gore. Yes, graphic animal manglings. Yes Most. Unnecessary. Rapes. Ever. It's got some pretty disgusting stuff.
Keep in mind this comes from the man who enjoys AND owns the movie with one of the longest rape scenes ever.
But I digress. The movie fails in it's plot involving "jerk off 20 something documentarians fucking with natives" in the same way a lot of the modern horror-snuff does. It's characters start off with a motivation but so quickly turn to nonsense brutality that it's unbelievable such characters exist and punishing them really doesn't do much for me. I get the exploitive anthropology angle but I still don't understand why they felt gang-raping the natives helped them at all. Or why the giggly girlfriend didn't get offended until her boyfriend tried to rape the girl...
Characters can't stand as evil or mean something unless they are understandable. The more relatable they are the more shocking it is to us that yes, indeed, we could be like them. If you just make insano monsters you can't say anything about anything.
Otherwise, I have to say for one of the goriest films of all time, the gore wasn't that amazing. I can see why people believed the infamous pike body for sure and surely that must have been why the director went on trial for killing the actors (if that actually happened...stupid internet). But the important thing to remember, which I understand now, is this film is one of "the most controversial ever made" and banned in most countries (including the country that produced it) for its rampant cruelty to animals. Again, it seemed like he wanted to say something about cannibalism vs. our willingness to fuck up turtles, muskrats and monkies but by cracking open a turtle (gross), cutting up a muskrat and CUTTING THE FACE OFF A MONKEY (the cute kind) it's all kind of lost in the wash of his own animal cruelty.
Seriously, if this movie could've made it's points in a less hypocritical manner and had slightly more understandable characters it could have been of massive importance. It had a lot to say well before other people started saying the same things.
As it is though, it's a crazy gross wannabe snuff movie (there isn't a single video on youtube I feel comfortable linking to due to violent content) that makes me want to join PETA.
It does have a wickedly inappropriate soundtrack though which I'd suggest anyone check out.
TOMORROW: David Lynch's "Inland Empire"...Dear Dave, please no rapes!
Cam
posted by Cam at 10:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home