Quote:
Originally Posted by fortunato
i think that's a little unfair. the mondo films were nothing more than disgusting exploitation, were presented as such, and certainly didn't try to be anything more. begotten, whether you liked it or not, certainly has a driving force behind it. it's an experiment, sure, but made with a love and respect for cinema. merhige tried and created something completely unique, and i think that alone should keep it from being lumped in with the likes of any mondo flick or faces of death.
|
To clarify my statement a little better, I mean these films offer up shocking or disturbing visuals, without much connection via storyline or plot. Not that they are docs. I think the Mondos did have a certain bit of quality behind them, tho. The music(More) from Cane is one of the more memorable songs to come out of cinema. And films like Ecco and Sadismo are of cult status. I think they serve as some sort of connection between actual documentary and the modern "reality" info-tainment we have today.
Der Todesking(from what I remember, it's probably been better than 10 years since I saw it) was 7 disjointed stories about death, spread out over the course of 7 days. There were no heroes to root for, no real story to follow, no suspenseful twists and turns, really no ending or beginning. In that way, I found Begotten to be similar.
I don't know if I'd call them horror flix tho(they did have horrific images, but than so does Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan). They're more in a gray area, I would call arthouse surrealism. I'd probably lump them together with Un Chien Andalou, El Topo, Salo:120 Days of Sodom, Alphaville and Eraserhead. Disturbing, bizarre.....but you don't really know what's going on. I don't necessarily think they are bad films(they're better than I could make), but they are not films I'd care to watch more than once.