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Mandinga
The Louisiana of Italy. It seem to smell carbonara and see the sea of
Ostia, while the images show us plantation slaves being whipped or
forced to have sex.
The Italian 'response' to the Richard Fleischer film was certainly not
to be missed. And it arrived a year later by the hands of Mario
Pinzauti who, probably taken by the enthusiasm of 'Emanuelle Bianca e
Nera', worked on a similar subject, set in the same years but with a
more 'catching' title.
As already mentioned, the poverty of means is evident from the very
first scenes and is brilliantly combined with that of ideas and
artistic skills both behind and in front of the camera.
A messy, often incomprehensible plot, demolished by nonsensical
dialogue and surreal scenes, gives the film an alienating, almost
psychedelic effect.
Pinzauti takes us to Louisiana, to a plantation where the owner is a
very bad man named Richard Hunther (Serafino Profumo) who loves the
whip and screwing slaves, like all bad men. The slave of the title
gives him a (white) daughter named Mary, who is brought up in disguise
by the local pastor, as she dies in childbirth.
So far, since I am good, I can also say that the plot makes (almost)
sense. But what comes next destroys all goodwill. Read carefully
because what happens is really messy.
Then Clarence, Richard's son who studied in England, and Rhonda a cousin of Hunther's wife arrive at the plantation.
Rhonda shares with the man, whose lover she becomes, a passion for the
whip and for slaves. However, he does not marry her and she gives
herself to her son, at the mere thought of not getting a penny of
inheritance. But Clarence prefers Mary, who is... his half-sister.
Mary in turn becomes pregnant and gives birth to a black son (ah the
follies of genetics!). Rhonda thus tries to play the card of hatred and
betrayal, Hunther finds out and tries to run for cover before his son
kills his faithful wife and half-sister. But it is too late.
A shoddy, shoddy soap opera plot that minute by minute reaches major
heifeeling that at some point they somehow tried to close the
circle.ghts of absurdity by putting in a genetics gone mad with black
and white children, sprung out in bulk without the slightest logic.
Thus giving us the