Wednesday, October 16, 2013

"Africa ama " (1971) d/ Alfredo and Angelo Castiglioni, Guido Guerrasio, Oreste Pellini

 photo africa-ama-img-137518_zps69d9f832.jpg
The nastiness continues...Let's season our month of Italian genre cinema here at the Wop with a mondo documentary from the notorious Castiglioni brothers, Alfredo and Angelo, who would later bring you the famously foul Addio ultimo uomo, aka/The Last Savage (1978), a pair that probably never once flinched in exploiting the dark continent during their prolific partnership, as titles Africa segreta(1969), Magia Nuda (1975), and Africa dolce e selvaggia (1982) might suggest. This time around they enlisted Guerrasio and Pellini, figuring they'd be able to stage a whole lot more shocking and sickening footage as four men than they'd be able to as two, I'd assume. The results are both shocking and sickening, as expected. Not for the easily queasily...

 photo aa1_zps64e8f54d.jpg
Remember where you were when Lil' Wayne first got his grill hooked up?
After we see a dead, old, tribal gent chucked into a burial hole in the ground, and some brutish-looking "primitive women"(don't blame me, blame the narrator) doing their chores, we're treated to many shots of Nat Geo-level flabby pancake tits. Be forewarned, there might even be more flabby pancake tit here than in Babs Streisand's sex tape. But I'm proud to say, I'll never know for sure. Then we've got malnourished kids eating snot-looking goop out of a cauldron and frying some rodents over an open fire, and a child's burial ceremony that ends with a corpse's severed head in a tree. If you wince at the thought of a dentist's chair, there's some African body mods next that'll have you welcoming his humming drill with an open yapped smile. Then some scarification and the familiar plate-stretched lips, after which, it could only be circumcision time. Some women gather by a puddle to menstruate, then we see the original 'twerkers' shakin' they assets, baby. While some are shown to have converted to Catholicism, we're next treated to the tribe's dead dog dance. It's a gruesome, lively little number, that's followed up by the obligatory dog meat feast. Hey, save a nose for me, ya greedy bastiges...

 photo aa2_zpsbad30f48.jpg
Some African tribal body mods are a lot creepier than others, just sayin'.
After you've emptied your first chuck bucket, the brothers C show you a thorough shave, some more gruesome-looking body mods, some pre-Sally Struthers fly-eyed children, severed monkey heads, and bat meat on a stick. In the marketplace, a woman purchases a wooden phallus, and then the females have a go at circumcision, themselves. There's lively dancing, enhanced by double shots of goat blood straight off the tap, followed by some peeps chowing down on a live swarm of flying insects as they're being pestered by them. Bloody hospital hijinks precede a formal sequence at a night club that segues into some prostitutes preening for work in the Sudan, and by 'work', I naturally mean a groovy hashish party with 45 rpm pop records in Arabic and spear fishing. An antelope gets slaughtered and a hunter rubs animal poo all over himself as the tribeswomen make vases. After an elderly tribesman expires against a rock, the festivities come to a close with a pair of sloppy child births, as graphic as you like 'em. Cue: Italian lounge music. Roll credits.

 photo aa3_zps021d0fce.jpg
Don't forget to wash him off in that rusty coffee can o' rainwater afterwards, for sterility's sake.
This is gross, tasteless, and more often than not, pretty disgusting to behold. Though the single wop score proves me unappreciative of all the cringe-worthy visuals on board here, I guess there might be a few out there who'd approve and groove on such an exploitative and ugly bag as this, but they are in a less karmic, less peaceful place than your humble narrator, and to them, I say: Do your own damned cult movie review website if you don't like it.

 photo aa4_zps0293faa0.jpg
Scrapple lovers'll appreciate this screenshot.
 photo nu1w_zpsb81401ad.jpg

No comments:

 
Connect with Facebook