Popular reviews

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  Review by claire donner ★★★★

  This movie more or less begins with a scene in which, we are told by a genteel narrator, an all-male island tribe waits for a beached seal to die so they can gang rape its corpse. I have to wonder what people expected when this movie, from the team behind the abundantly titillating MONDO CANE films, began to make its theatrical rounds. It's important to remember that the mondo genre was created by ex-newsreel journalists who wanted to put to death the pretentious idea that film can deliver objective truth. With this in mind, Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi set out to make the most vivid, confrontational, emotionally manipulative documentaries (if you want to call them that) ever made, exposing…

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  Review by Ryan Rosendal ★★½ 1

  This is not, in my opinion, particularly woke.

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  Review by ohyesia ★½

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  ”Today, there is nothing in the world that could distract them. Well, maybe one thing. Only one.”

  I will preface by saying I knew going in that this wasn’t going to be my favorite of the Cult Movie Challenge weeks, but I tried to go in with an open mind. My honest reason for picking Women of the World is that I hoped it would contain less animal death than Mondo Cane 1 and 2 are known for. Other than one not-fun scene towards the beginning, I got my wish.

  Women of the World is a Mondo film in the shockumentary style. There are occasional visual or thematic connections between vignettes of women around the world, but for the most…

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  Review by Pink⚸Meanie ★★★½

  In which a British narrator in the early 60's talks about, among other things, "erotically underdeveloped countries" from a "scientific viewpoint" ... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  Definitely more interesting than the original Mondo Cane (mercifully, mostly void of animal cruelty too).

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  Review by Vlademir Lazo ★★★

  Procurando o que há muitos anos lera do que Carlos Reichenbach escreveu sobre Prosperi & Jacopetti, que entre a aversão e o fascínio pelos realizadores, considerava este Mulher no Mundo o melhor da série Mondo Cane (um dos favoritos também de Luc Moullet), e é fácil entender os motivos. Há cinquenta e tantos anos sugeria ser uma contribuição ou testemunho à revolução sexual e de costumes que então se desenhava, centrado nos papéis sociais e culturais reservados à mulher, e ao sexo, incluindo a homossexualidade masculina e a feminina, e as cirurgias plásticas às vezes não bem-sucedidas, tudo muitas vezes levando a alguma forma de consumo, ao triunfo do capitalismo. As gracinhas com a rotina militar em um regimento de mulheres…

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  Review by Simon Abrams 2

  Molto Mondo. Also: Steve Carlson fell asleep while watching this.

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  Review by circlesquared ★★

  JANUARY JUMP BACKS DAY 12
  This felt like a lie even before I learned that much of it was. They make up nonsense about the exoticized almost like “Fun with Lip Syncing”, but not necessarily for comedy.

  For one example, there's a tribe in New Guinea where the women (topless of course) labor away while the men pretty themselves up with some sort of yellow pigment. Its likely that the two are unrelated and juxtaposed for the sake of some half assed assertion. They basically reverse this later with another tribe where the men work and the women laze in Malaysia. At another point, they claim that a group of men in Australia, who are undoubtedly hunters, are actually zoophiles…

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  Review by Mark ★★★½

  I was expecting more of a old fashioned nudie cutie, but this is more of a travelog with a flash or two of nudity. I was a little surprised by some of the operating room and plastic surgery scenes. And the line I can't get over, was spoken at a ranch in Las Vegas. Apparently it was a place where women could go while waiting to finalize their divorce. The scene had two kids riding a horse, and the voice over said, "The children play by themselves while Mom waits to liquidate Dad".

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  Review by blakeg ★★★

  I find this film to be difficult to rate. Somehow it really narrows the margins between five stars and 1/2 star. I think those who criticize it for being dated misunderstand it. I mean, it is dated, but it shouldn’t be taken strictly as a sign of the times. The directors knew what they were doing. Whether or not the finished product is worth it is a different matter.

  It is an offensive film, no doubt. The question I have is—what is intended from its offensiveness? I really don’t know.

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  Review by Bear Chicka Wow-Wow ★★★★

  This film really shouldn't feel that jaw dropping...and yet....

  Grossly Offensive? Amusing?

  Both!

  Piggy film making aimed toward the types who voices were heard by Trump.

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  Review by George White ★

  Sexist tosh. That seems to think "gay men are women too"
  An insult to Belinda Lee.
  Also, the Jack Nitzsche cover of the theme is far better, far more poignant than the Ortolani original.

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  Review by Jason M ★★

  One of the weakest Jacopetti/Cavara/Prosperi Mondo's. A series of vignettes focusing on women around the world, young, old, small, large, and the more "curiously undressed they are", the more the trio focus on their daily routines. And of course, there are a couple of "shock" moments that we with the cynical eyes of today can giggle at as these moments are presented as actual reality. However, there are dashes of male homosexuality in various crooks and crannies of the globe, and are treated with the same otherness as the strange cultures of the east. As always, the most favoured part has to be the segment on Sweden, even if it's about as weak and un-shocking as anything else in this piece.

  Best part of the whole shebang is the Riz Ortolani / Nino Olivieri score, which always is a massive part of the Mondo experience.