Together with Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, five years earlier Paolo Cavara had shocked international audiences with Mondo cane, a film that transformed the documentary into an exercise in cruelty, a mixture of reconstruction and documentation that had surpassed all known limits. He then used the same mondo-film formula in making I malamondo, a work that focused on the lifestyles of European youth. With L’occhio selvaggio, Cavara moved onto fiction cinema. But are we certain of that? On closer inspection, perhaps this film is a much more accurate and lucid work of documentation than his previous offerings. It is a document of self-awareness, almost a confession: it is an often disturbing reflection on the falsification, manipulation and sacrifice of reality in the name of entertainment and show business. Almost an essay on cinema as fabricator of emotions, sensations and thrills for sale. L’occhio selvaggio is a tormented and still very relevant film. It is also absolutely unique in its genre.
Paolo is an Italian reporter who travels the world in search of sensationalist images. He knows no fear and does not hesitate to stoop to any level of baseness. After having caused accidents, frequented prostitutes and drug addicts, and risked being killed by Viet Cong soldiers, he witnesses his girlfriend being killed by a falling beam during an attack. Will she too be nothing more than a subject to film?
Together with Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, five years earlier Paolo Cavara had shocked international audiences with Mondo cane, a film that transformed the documentary into an exercise in cruelty, a mixture of reconstruction and documentation that had surpassed all known limits. He then used the same mondo-film formula in making I malamondo, a work that focused on the lifestyles of European youth. With L’occhio selvaggio, Cavara moved onto fiction cinema. But are we certain of that? On closer inspection, perhaps this film is a much more accurate and lucid work of documentation than his previous offerings. It is a document of self-awareness, almost a confession: it is an often disturbing reflection on the falsification, manipulation and sacrifice of reality in the name of entertainment and show business. Almost an essay on cinema as fabricator of emotions, sensations and thrills for sale. L’occhio selvaggio is a tormented and still very relevant film. It is also absolutely unique in its genre.
Paolo is an Italian reporter who travels the world in search of sensationalist images. He knows no fear and does not hesitate to stoop to any level of baseness. After having caused accidents, frequented prostitutes and drug addicts, and risked being killed by Viet Cong soldiers, he witnesses his girlfriend being killed by a falling beam during an attack. Will she too be nothing more than a subject to film?
