dudas_m

Poachers mindlessly killing game for fun and profit. Hands being chopped off a la Colonial Congo. Arabs being massacred on mass during the Zanzibar revolution. Simba rebels killing and being executed in return. White mercenaries fighting in the Congo.

All of these things, and many more, are followed by this classic Mondo film. It's flawed (its narrative is shamelessly colonialist, avoiding all the atrocities that the colonizers committed and the actual causes for nationalism that led to these tragedies), but this is Heart of Darkness for the film generation: It is a glimpse into the worst that Africa has to offer, and nobody comes out looking good.

Highly recommended, if you got the stomach to watch some of the most senseless butchery ever recorded on film. If only these guys had done Vietnam.

Sweden: Heaven and Hell follows the same pattern as other Mondo films, you know, pseudo-documentary (this movie has a lot of faked scenes), the film-makers go into an exotic place to film all the wild happenings there, and here it's particularly amusing seeing the Italian catholics judge the Swedes for having sex education class (The Horror!).

Fortunately, unlike other Mondo movies, there is no sickening animal violence here, but there really isn't much of anything else besides hypocritical pornography for repressed Italin Catholic males.

Don't necessarily avoid it, because it can be fun, but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it either. If you want a better Mondo film, watch either the first Mondo Cane or even better, Africa Addio.