Mondocane is Italian for “dog world,” named after a 1962 exploitation “shockumentary,” part of the “mondo” cycle of films in the early sixties showing allegedly real (although often staged) rituals, violence, and sacrifice, exoticizing the lives of Africans, Latin Americans, and poor Europeans as “bizarre entertainment.”

In this Mondocane, classical tragedy plays out in the lives of two thirteen year olds, Pietro, AKA Mondocane (Dennis Protopapa) and Cristian  AKA Pisciasotto – Pisspants (Giuliano Soprano). The best friends are “strays,” orphans who live in Taranto, Italy, an economically disenfranchised fishing village abandoned by the authorities to be ruled by gangs. The film opens with the boys diving off a beach and bringing up an old crucifix. Pisciasotto has a seizure, his nickname coming from the results of his epilepsy.

They walk home past factories belching smoke into Taranto. The gang they wish to join, The Ants, says they can join if they set fire to a specific store in New Taranto, the part of town for the elite and wealthy. Meanwhile, Sabrina (Ludovica Nasti), another orphan, is at a school, from which she keeps running away and keeps getting brought back. She befriends a policewoman (Barbara Ronchi) tasked with investigating and destroying the gangs.

Hothead (Alessandro Borghi), the leader of the Ants, offers Mondocane a role in the gang, but Mondocane won’t join without Cristian. Although initially rejected, the two prove their worth by helping the gang with a home invasion. Hothead has one of the ten year old Ants shoot the woman they find in the home, demonstrating that the adult leaders have the children commit the actual crimes, absolving themselves of responsibility. Crisian proves to be the better gang member – amoral, willing to kill, able to do what Pietro is not. The friendship that defined them for life thus far slowly but surely begins to fray and the audience senses that the film will end with one or both of them dead. Cristian and Hothead bond in a scene that moves the latter beyond a one dimensional bad guy and exposes the economic forces that created the gangs.

The performers anchor Mondocane, especially the young ones. Sadly, the dark scenes are especially dark, which results in murky scenes in which the action is impossible to see. Still, overall the film proceeds towards its inevitable tragic end with solid pacing and direction. Enjoyable for its art, painful for its narrative. Not a horror film, but certainly horrific in its depiction of poverty and how adults, both cops and criminals, exploit kids to advance their agenda, and perpetuate the system and circumstances.

8 out of 10