ABSTRACT
In the final scenes of the film Mondo Cane, Gualtiero Jacopetti’s original “shockumentary,” we see eager Papua New Guinea islanders clustered around a huge, roughly made model of an airplane. They are high up in the mountains, sitting on a new airstrip they carved out of the forest. Their eyes search the skies, so the film tells us, for airplanes full of wonderful “cargo” that they expect will soon arrive. But they are destined to be disappointed. No planes will land. These islanders are the misguided followers of a cargo cult.
