What about animal cruelty...?
That was a live bird they tied to a tree-trunk and shot with arrows wasn't it?
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There must be thousands post on this board, most of them endlessly repeating same things about nudity, legality etc; and not a single person found it important to reply on this post! Friends of animals should really find it to be a reason for concern!
As this movie was made in 70's, there haven't been any strict laws regarding treating animals even in real life, let alone movies. No controls during movie making. And people were accepting things without grumbling or screaming. If not so, many of those movies couldn't have been made (and that is why such movies are not being produced any more, to avoid complications from complaining to legal charges).
I like animals and I am very much against animal cruelty, but some scenes have to be realistic to be powerful. Remember, today many things can be made by computor animation, but in those years it had to be real.
Yes, it's strange no-one had said anything about that. I particularly found that scene with the bird a lot more disturbing than the nudity scenes, especially because it was made with children! Probably the reason no-one mentioned this cruelty is because most people center their attention in the nudity/sex and not in the story itself. Actually the nudity/sex is not the main concept of this movie.
shareIt is disturbing, it was meant to be disturbing and it should be disturbing, it was made to be disturbing as the whole movie was made with the same purpose. As you say, nudity/sex are not the main concept. Instead, it is the deviation in behaving of adolescents that can occur in any situation, only this isolation emphasizes it and makes us see what we often miss or refuse to see or simply don't believe, not only in movies (what is not such a problem) but in real life as well (and that can be a real problem). Animal cruelty is equally important sign of this deviation as all other torture we can see.
However, people are so used to violence and often very open to it, tolerating and accepting it, that they don't see animal cruelty as long as their (expensive) pet dog doesn't become a victim. Also, if accepting all this deviated behavior, there is only nudity they can find disturbing. And when so many people in the world (especially in countries and cultures that have so much influence on the rest) find something natural as nudity disturbing, and violence, animal cruelty, bullying and torturing, and murder after all, not disturbing (as if it were more human and natural than nudity or sexuality), we can understand why this world looks the way it does and can easily predict how it's going to be like in future.
I'd think they could've used a fake bird, add some fake blood, and the scene would've still served for impact and shock. I thought the scenes with the dog lunging at Lara Wendel or the beginning sequence of Martin Loeb wrestling with the dog were a bit shocking and, yet, those were choreographed with a dog who was trained to not really be cruel and vicious to the kids. Even the snake wasn't killed off (which I thought would've happened seeing as to how the boy carried a knife with him).
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I agree with your post.
But, the same as the correct, often mentioned judgement that this movie could have been made in 70's and today not because of sexuality as its topic and nude scenes, treatment of animals is in the same category. There were no laws, no rules that would prevent hurting or killing animals.
I agree that fake wounds and fake blood, as they are used for humans, could be used for animals as well. But as there were no laws, and special effects haven't been so developed in 70's, it isn't strange that a bird was killed.
However, I have some doubts about the whole animal cruelty discussion. Since PC has been created it has gained more influence than Bible in Medieval ages. Now people want to prove that they are PC-righteous ("bigger catholics than Pope") and they express attitudes beyond the edge of absurd. Examples: long discussion on "Nirgendwo in Afrika" board about ritual killing of a cow - this is almost documentary scene showing native tribe killing animal for food, and there is no doubt that it has been used for this purpose after the movie. Second, cutting throat of a hen in "Une vraie jeune fille" and some other movies (less discussed but movies are not so well-known) is something that is still happening in Middle and Eastern Europe. People in villages still raise chicken, pigs, ducks for food, and they have to kill them somehow.
So this PC surveillance of movies makes things ridiculous: it is legal and normal to kill a cow or chicken (how would we have meat otherwise?) but it is not normal to show it in a movie. The same is with e.g. smoking which is, though restricted, still legal, but some movie companies already announced they'll cut all smoking scenes, or with nudity (especially underage, either actors or audience) though naturist beaches (for all ages) are free in most countries.
In "Spielen wir Liebe", however, the bird was killed for fun, it was killing just for killing. As it was meant to show Laura been bullied it had a strong cause to be there, but again, I see no reason for a real bird to be killed. Additional disturbance is the fact it was done by a couple of kids.
But what can we expect in the world where killing wild animals is called sport? In the world where people kill animals only for pleasure, and even win points for that, when official national or world records exist like records in athletics or swimming? In the world where weapons are widely available to purchase and people who use it are exemplars to youngsters? Knowing that, I am afraid that these "animal cruelty" worries are just a hypocrisy of those PC activists.
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Interesting idea, I've never thought about this possibility.
But still it makes me somehow sad. I am ready to accept almost everything for the sake of art, but I keep my privilege to feel sad about some of that.
Maybe I'm a bit hypocrite or have double standards... but killing a chicken, a cow, a pig for the movie (if not in extremely cruel way) doesn't bother me. These animals usually aren't killed in vain. They are supposed to be killed anyway for food, and as I am not vegetarian I have no right to complain. If this meat is used after movie, no real harm is done. The movie crew who eats this meal would otherwise eat meat of some other animal that would also be killed, with or without cameras and reflectors. Killing a wild animal is always different. They are free, and their life seems to be worth more than some farm duck or goat.
And if this maybe is a double standard approach, it is the same as when someone eats carrot or cabbage, plucks weed but preserves edelweiss or rare sorts of orchids.
In the film "Cannibal Holocaust," a rare, giant turtle was dragged out of the sea and decapitated while it was still alive. The filmmakers claimed that the crew later ate the turtle meat, and that nothing was wasted. The problem is not so much the killing, (although killing animals on the endangered list is a crime) but the needless torture the animal had to endure for the sake of exploitation/trash. They could have cut the turtles head off first, before cutting it's feet off and ripping open the stomach, but they didn't. Some people apparently like looking at others suffering. Both 'Spielen Wir Liebe/Maladolescenza' and 'Cannibal Holocaust' are, in their own ways, studies of the inherent cruelty in humans. The difference is, the animal killed in Maladolescenza was a small, ordinary bird, the kind that die in nature all the time, just from being eaten by larger animals. And even though the scene of the children killing it was very well done, and disturbing, that doesn't make it right to make any living thing suffer like that. The turtle killing in 'Holocaust' was repugnant and totally unnacceptable, and unnessesary. But Maladolescenza is a good film, and not merely exploitation. And while the bird killing scene made me cringe, I thought it added power to an already disturbing tale.
shareNothing to add or disagree. There seems to be no need for further discussion unless someone appears with a completely new arguments.
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The turtle being killed and the bird being killed are in the same aesthetic category.
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you're wrong, actually the turtle gets beheaded first and then disemboweled.
shareokay can someone describe to me the scene and what exactly happened. i have the soundtrack and the piece of music i loved most, ironically, was used for that scene. based off what i've read, i don't think i could watch it (the music does it's job in making you feel for the poor creature even more so than it would had there been no music at all).
i'm just trying to piece it together while i listen to this piece. was the murder of the bird quick, or was it long and drawn out. could you please describe that whole scene for me please?
At first, I thought that scene was just for shock value, with the way it seems to randomly 'appear', and then 'disappear', but it really shows how evil these kids can be.
The scene comes just after Sylvia appears for the first time. She introduces herself, and then it cuts to her and Fabrizio shooting arrows at the bird, which is tied down. They clearly find it a joke: they're joking and laughing about the bird slowly dying. The camera actually shows the arrows (five of them, in the end) penetrating the bird, and the bird suffering. Laura is watching in the background, clearly distressed by what is happening. The film then cuts to the next scene.
There's no music in the bird scene, though. I just watched it back in order to describe the scene for you.
It's definitely a very distressing scene to sit through, and I'm a guy who's 'seen it all', as it were.
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They could have cut the turtles head off first, before cutting it's feet off and ripping open the stomach, but they didn't.
They did, actually.
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So you're saying that because the bird was an ordinary bird and the turtle was rare that the killing of the bird was justified.
And because Holocaust was repugnant and Maladolescenza was good, again the killing was justified.
That is total *beep* I'm not against animals being killed for food and even though I would never go hunting myself, I don't judge people who do. What I am against though is torture before killing.
And both the turtle and the bird were tortured before being killed. The bird, small and insignificant though it may have been, was tied and shot with multiple arrows. Imagine the suffering it must have gone through. But because its small and common, its suffering isn't worthy of taking note.
Oh, and lets not forget that the scene was "very well done" so that of course justifies the torture too.
So going by your standards, since you're not a celebrity or some VIP, if you're tortured and killed tomorrow, as long as the killer does it in an artistic way, its totally justified. Isn't that cool.
People like you make me sick.
No. The bird was very much alive and flapping its wings as the arrows shot through it.
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