From the Tarantino Grindhouse DVD Box Set. 'Mandinga' is a work of low budget Italin made explotation trash whose name is meant to sound like 'Mandango', the name of a similar work of moderately budgeted American made explotation trash that came out the previous year. Now I have not seen 'Mandango', but I know it was a box office failure, so trying to capitalize off the name is a pretty exquisitely Grindhouse thing to do.
This whole movie is pretty exquisitely Grindhouse. Set in Antebellum Louisiana over the course of around 20 years, though the movie does a pisspoor job of communicating the passage of time. The sexual explotation of slaves, by both men and women, is depicted multiple times then we skip forward a couple of decades for more of the same as well as our main plot, which is a kind of love quadrangle. The big reveal at the end is a case of accidental incest and two generations of plantation owners realizing slavery is wrong when they end up with a mixed race heir. A mostly unpleasant first half followed by an also unpleasant but watchable second half. I kind of admire the audiciousness of this movie, but I don't think I can even call the film fair, so I'm giving it *1/2
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