Malamondo (1964) Paolo Cavara

Malamondo (1964)
Genre: Mondo
Country: Italy | Director: Paolo Cavara
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1 | Length: 82mn
Dvdrip Xvid Avi - 528x400 - 23.976fps - 1.46gb
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058321/

Includes Something Weird Video Trailers (40mn)

This documentary looks at strange behaviors and practices in Europe, including nude skiing in Switzerland, hot-butchering in Italy, and an orgy in a graveyard.

"War babies. They want to be different. They don't want to belong to any mass society. They have their own-type clubs, their own 'in' groups." Thus Malamondo, an elegant look at early-Sixties' teenage angst and "way out youth," Euro-style, set to the delirious musical musings of a young ENNIO MORRICONE!

"Teenage swingers" ski in the nude in the Swiss Alps! (Skinny-skiing?) At a summer resort in Italy, "the children of the post-war rich" interrupt their boredom to play Who Wants-to-Slaughter-a Pig, and quickly learn that "waste and destruction aren't so hip after all!" And students in Northern Italy race to the beach at lunch time and "let off steam" with a sea-side striptease!

French high school students play chicken atop an ascending escalator, while other sky dive during the day, then make out in a cemetery at night: "It's a bit noisier, perhaps a bit scarier, but the tenants downstairs don't complain!"

"When a "Mod" chick enters a "Rocker's" hangout in England, a wild motorcycle race ensues to see who'll win "the right to seek the favors of the fair lady for the weekend!" And Scottish gals in Glasgow protest "Free Love" in a public park -- and are attacked by a disapproving mob of young men!

Sexy nurses try to seduce delicate male "neuters" in a Swiss clinic. "they are not interested in girls. And they are not interested in boys. They are only interested in being left alone." But Beware: "because of the many frustrations, a nurse who works at this clinic too long sometimes becomes a lost soul herself!"

Plus a Parisian "happening" ("an intellectual orgy"): German face-scarring (a permanent badge of courage"); a tour of the Dachau Krematorium; suicidal Swiss; and homosexuals in a French gay bar where "the Third Sex need no longer be clandestine!"

All of which looked pretty outrageous back in 1964. Director PAOLO CAVARA was one of the co-creators of both Mondo Cane and Women of the World along with Jacopetti and Prosperi, and Malamondo, one of the best of the early mondos, is very much in the same style -- celebrating the then-offbeat with lush photography --but with a more laid-back, less confrontational attitude. In fact, not only is Malamondo more melancholy than shocking, but it may very well be the antithesis of the genre:a mellow mondo.

The sonorous narration is courtesy of MARVIN MILLER, the voice of Robby the Robot. Best known for the early TV series The Millionaire, Miller specialized in providing voices for cartoons and dubbed features, though he occasionally appeared in such oddities as Is This Trip Rally Necessary and Hell Squad. But the real star of Malamondo is Morricone. Most people think of film scores as audio support to the picture. Here, however, it seems like the reverse is true -- that all the wonderful photography is there to give visual accompaniment to a hauntingly sublime score.