John Waters's MONDO TRASHO (1969)

 

Welp... this is definitely John Waters's first feature-length film!

It's almost unfair in my mind to give this a specific star rating because Mondo Trasho most reminds me of a student film. Of course that's not exactly the case as Waters was purely an independent filmmaker always meaning his art to be underground, that something like this or Multiple Maniacs or Eat Your Makeup might not play in a traditional theater and so what a church or local Cafe would do just as well. That it's all so No budget and shot like a hazy drug fueled nightmare adds to the appeal for a certain audience.

But also because I can relate - when I was college I made films not quite like this (there's nothing quite like Mondo Trasho anywhere else) but similar that I had no money, only friends and random people and a light or two (if I was lucky) to work with and I was still trying to figure out what I was interested in and with influences coursing through my veins like amphetamines. I know if I revisited them today I'd be embarrassed, and Waters has said more than once that he finds Mondo Trasho in retrospect to be too long and should have been a short film.

And while he may be right, and that there isn't so much a story as it's a very ragged outline to follow with a young woman (Pearce) getting her feet sucked (and LOVES it) by a foot fetishist and then hit by a car via Divine who brings her along town and winds up captured by workers at an insane asylum who sit there and watch a, uh, nude dancer I guess before everyone breaks out and Divine finally takes her to a doctor (oh good old David Lochary, but he's wearing a mask and you should be too) who proceeds to saw off Pearce's feet and attach those of a chicken, and then the movie just wanders a bit more with Dorothy in Oz heel clicking to end up in another part of low-end Baltimore and concluding with two broads (in one of the few times they have people talking in the audio) spewing a stream of "oh look at that speed freak etc etc"... I kept watching this because I wanted to see where this would go next.

For all of its (over) length the fact that there is a car accident in this lends itself to the style- you want to keep watching because of the crazy turns it will go to and how insane Waters fills the frame with his people acting like there's never been a top high enough to go over. And all put to that soundtrack!

The two most prominent 'children' so to speak of Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising when it comes to using music, often in wall-to-wall style, were clearly Martin Scorsese and John Waters, but for the latter there was also Andy Warhol and that is what makes Mondo Trasho so engaging even as (or despite) there not being a whole lot going on at times or scenes being stretched past their limits. There is a conflict in approach though as Warhol was very much about elongation and making the audience feel bored because being bored is good for you and Zzzzz. Waters didn't work like that even from early on as he was an outsider who wore his Freak Flag proud and wanted to get a rise out of the then easily shockable audience.

So a scene where we are watching Pearce wait for a bus for five minutes has a fascination to it - Waters once said this is what hitchhiking was really like, waiting around till one gave up (incidentally an Anger book is being read by Pearce on the bus) - but it isn't very engaging, even with the uh Graduation music put to it. Or the foot sucking scene, which has a great lead up with the fetishist sneaking around and looking like a would be Manson Family fucker, goes on past the point where there's even the laughter over how long it is (and are those cutaway shots to her fantasies while being pleasured? Search me). Or the dance in the asylum is another scene that goes on for so long that it becomes boring, and it shouldn't be because Waters is a natural entertainer. So it's at times frustrating to take as a film and not viewed as an early experiment by a guy trying to figure his shit out.

But what's interesting further is that it feels like Waters is growing as a director while the movie goes on - by the time we get to the Doctor's office, there's more of an energy and a filthy comic spirit to the edits and the song choices get even wilder. It's not that the movie before doesn't have these moments, a few pretty funny, where Waters gets his groove as a shameless provocateur, but till this set piece it's in fits and starts. I can't stress enough how unique the soundtrack here is, that it's a bit more eclectic than straight rock and roll (though there's lots of that) as Wagner and the Wizard of Oz soundtrack get time alongside Motown and Link Wray.

Mondo Trasho should be unclassifiable, a largely meant to be silent film (no sync sound, that came later) but also a Jukebox musical about a desperate lady in a convertible in Divine and the poor car crash victim and the Maniacs and bastards and bitches they meet along the way... but it's ultimately a John Waters/Dreamland Studios movie. I'm glad I saw it, even though I'm not sure I'd sit through it again any time soon.