Ruggero Deodato
Cannibal Holocaust

Barbara commercial operation beyond the revolting or experiment to probe the limits of the representable? Even if we are in 1980, the world in which this famous film by Deodato moves is that of the seventies in terminal phase. Once the intoxication of the "years of the youth" was over, the murder of Sharon Tate by the followers of Charles Manson took place, and entering the era of terrorism (just to mention some of the key moments of the late 60s/entire 70s), the world that the decade that has just dawned leaves behind is now a melting pot of irrationality and desire for death.

For these and other reasons, whether this film is beautiful or reprehensible, we cannot ignore it.

In short, the film tells the story of an anthropologist tasked with searching for a group of young people who left to make documentaries on the Yanomamo tribe, the tree people. The journey undertaken by the scholar, accompanied by a guide, leads them to find scarified carcasses tied to a pole with film reels hanging from them. These are the corpses of the young students, devoured by cannibals and displayed as trophies.
Returning to the United States, the anthropologist has the films developed, which are projected in a private room in front of the victims' families. On the screen appear images of horrific atrocities perpetrated by the students against the Indians; massacres, sexual violence, animal dismemberment; this continues until the finale where the group is captured and devoured. All this while the last of them flees and films everything. Even himself falling and being killed.

Now: there’s little to defend, the violence inflicted on the animals in this film (real violence) is certainly reprehensible, although it must be said that the ecological culture at the time was less developed. In an interview, Deodato declared that this was the only one of his films where this occurred and against his will. True or not, people with sensitivity towards others, man or beast, cannot fail to be outraged when, for example, a turtle is caught and its carapace opened and limbs severed. We are in voyeurism without a doubt, even if in reality it is precisely a Yanomamo ritual performed according to the rules.

But... there’s one thing to say; this is a film about voyeurism and also very interesting as well as well shot. Certainly, there are anthropological errors, but Deodato’s craft is of very good quality.

It is primarily the original structure of the screenplay that strikes favorably; in fact, it is two films in one. Initially, the adventurous research expedition, with its brutal beauty. Then the projection of the students' films. A film within a film and at the time something rare in a “commercial” film. It is here that a reflection on the filmable, on the spectator being observed, is born. It’s a film the journey of the anthropologist. It’s a film within a film, with development smudges and the heads and tails of the unedited film the projections of the young criminals’ reports. The use of the handheld camera by the young murderers, who were actually snuff movie authors seeking easy gains, doesn’t stop at anything, whether it’s filming innocent Yanomamo mothers and children burning in a hut (a scene explicitly taken by Oliver Stone in “Platoon”) or filming the mutilation of a traveling companion’s leg bitten by a venomous snake.

In a certain sense, and less nobly than “Peeping Tom” by Powell but very modernly, it is as if one of the principal demons of filmmaking is revealed to us; the morbid attitude of those filming others and awaiting the most scandalous secret moment, dying.

From this point of view, not as arbitrary as it might seem, the final scene is illuminating; as already written above, for every companion who dies under the horrifying atrocities of the Indians there is an eye watching the details closely. Nothing stops the duty to film, to eternalize the end. All this framed by the magnificent soundtrack by Riz Ortolani, so contrastingly lyrical as to amplify the horror.

We can almost say that “Cannibal Holocaust” even contains its condemnation.

In reality, the film was seized, although it was not the first "cannibal" film of Italian cinema. Deodato, who had passed off the students’ footage as real, so much so that they signed to disappear from circulation, had to present the actors in court to prove they were alive. This says a lot about the realism of the final scenes...
The most condemned scene is the most famous of the entire work: the young people find a girl impaled, a trophy left on the road. In reality, the girl, very much alive and well, was mounted on a bicycle seat and a pointed pole was held tightly in her mouth. Skill of the special effects technician, the great Sergio Stivaletti.
“Cannibal Holocaust” was seized for 4 years and then released in a truncated version (truncated... ironic isn’t it...), especially since until the recent DVD release, it was impossible to see the uncut version.

Today it is a cult film worldwide; so well-known that two savvy young Americans used the same marketing strategy and basic idea to create “The Blair Witch Project”. In Japan, it ranks as the second most watched film. In Italy, I believe it was broadcast only once, heavily cut, on a Mediaset network, at night.

Among the leading actors in the spotlight is Luca Barbareschi, uncredited. Those who dislike this actor will only confirm their feelings while watching him kill (truly) a kind of small wild boar after kicking it. “Cannibal Holocaust” is his debut film.

Love it, hate it... I’m not quite sure myself; certainly, it is essential to understand an era. I myself have never been able to watch it again, but it’s so impressive that I haven’t managed to forget it. It’s there, with the other DVDs; every now and then I’d like to watch it again but I can’t do it. And I can't even recommend it to the weaker stomachs.

To conclude, I use the last lines from the film, spoken by the anthropologist, after watching the snuffs: “Sometimes I wonder who the real cannibals are”...

p.s.: from this review onward, I will avoid putting voting stars because they are too binding for an increasingly complex and nuanced judgment than what symbols can convey.

With affection, Giovanni Natoli known as happypippo.