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Released by: Woodhaven Entertainment
Released on: 3/23/2004
Director: Alfredo Castiglioni, Angelo Castiglioni, Guido Guerrasio, Oreste Pellini
Cast: N/A, Narrated by Marc Mauro Smith
Year: 1976
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The Movie:
Magia Nuda opens with a boat cruising through Africa while the soothing sounds of 'When A Child Is Born' playing over top. The sophisticated narrator explains to us that the purpose of this serious documentary is to examine some of the more unusual tribal rituals still practiced today in various countries around the world. As our camera crew travels to Africa and into the Amazon jungle, and eventually to the Philippians they capture many bizarre and grotesque practices on camera while the narrator explains their significance.
So what do we see on our journey through the most remote destinations in the world? Well, plenty - and most of it is pretty disgusting. We begin with an African tribe who bath in cow urine in order to keep the local insects at bay. Soon after, they 'bond' with their animals and dance around naked. When they elder men of the tribe instruct the children how to hunt, it's here that the obligatory animal violence begins as we see them take down a buffalo in no small amount of gory detail. When this is all said and done the tribes-people pierce their cattle so that they can enjoy a cool drink of cows blood.
Next, we head into the depths of the Amazon jungle where we lay witness to some bizarre sexual rituals of a remote tribe. Much nudity ensues and a woman breastfeeds a dog. Some tribesmen chow down on bugs, until its time to punish a local man convicted of infidelity. He gets beaten about the head with sticks and takes a few rocks to the face.
With that out of the way, we head to the Philippines to see psychic surgeons dig their fingers into the exposed bodies of a few patients to remove whatever malady they may be afflicted with. A few natives take some drugs and trip out, and the narrator tells us that they may be cannibals.
Once we leave the Philippines, we head back to Africa where things get a bit nastier. Many elephants are hunted down and brutalized on camera, natives pee on each other in some sort of bizarre medical practice, and some other more extreme shamanistic practices are exposed. We see some primitive exorcism rituals, some fire walking, and some more strange sex practices. As it all winds down, we're left with some stoic narration as the camera shows us how civilization is beginning to encroach upon the wilds of the jungle, in some veiled attempt to put it all into some sort of perspective.
Partially directed by Alfredo and Castiglioni (who would later cash in on the pseudo-revival that mondo films experienced in the early eighties with exceptionally graphic Shocking Africa), the film is an interesting entry in this most bizarre of sub-genres. From its opening serene moments to its obscenely gruesome footage of elephant mutilation, the film is always interesting, even if it is just for the shock value.
Released under the aliases of Mondo Magic (as it is billed here), Naked Magic, and Shocking Cannibals, this is an interesting and above average example of the genre. While Magia Nuda does have its share of obviously exploitative (and very fake) moments, it at least attempts to remain reasonably serious from start to finish and at least manages to have some sort of context, however thin it may be.
This version of the film runs just over 85 minutes, leading me to believe that there may be some footage missing.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The film is presented fullframe, and it's hard to tell if this is the correct aspect ratio or not, as it isn't shot the way a normal studio produced film would be. Give the nature of shooting in the environments in which the footage is captured in, it's hard to ascertain if the image is cropped or just not particularly well photographed in the first place. Aspect ratio aside, Woodhaven's transfer isn't perfect. There's quite a bit of print damage and some evidence of compression, but with that out of the way, the movie is perfectly watchable and the colors don't look too bad. Given that this is a budget release, it looked about as good as I'd figured it would - not great, but at least sufficient for what it is.
Marc Mauro Smith's narration is in English and is never difficult to understand. There is some background hiss here and there, but the levels are balanced reasonably well and the films score doesn't overshadow Smith at any point during the film's duration. It's presented in Dolby Digital Mono so there isn't really any channel separation, but it's also pretty safe to assume that that is the way that it was originally recorded. Again, it's not a particularly great track, but it gets the job done ok.
From the menu screen, we can access trailers for a few other Woodhaven releases, including Kwaheri: Vanishing Africa and three other unrelated release.
The Final Word:
If you're into mondo films, Magia Nuda/Mondo Magic is worth tracking down. It's hard to take some of it seriously, but as a curiosity piece it works really well and the film contains an interesting mix of shocking, authentic footage and its own fair share of bogus material. Woodhaven's disc is far from perfect, but it is certainly priced right.