by Douglas Messerli
Peter de Rome (director) Mumbo Jumbo / 1972
Peter de Rome’s Mumbo Jumbo appears to
be just that, a batch of confusing material that the director hadn’t been able
to develop into a coherent short film. For a few moments as he compares a TV ad
for a new Fontana automobile with a naked human body, it appears that this
series of kaleidoscopic images might spin into various scenes centered around
the issue of how close the language of advertising is to sexual jargon—quips
about its “well-constructed chassis, etc.”
But just as suddenly it leaps into a series of photos from the famous Blackglama celebrity ads cooked up by creative advertising executive Jane Trahey in the late 1960s, who offered numerous stars a new mink of their choice and a Richard Avedon photo of them snuggling under its warm embrace. For a few moments de Rome uses this as an excuse to proceed on to his black boy fetish, intercutting with several images of brown male legs and butts, but he soon draws a close to that avenue as well.
Quite inexplicably, the film veers off onto the subject of “fag mags,”
depicting one gay couple leafing through a Judy Garland fan magazine while
endlessly laughing, presumably over her variously inappropriate clothing
choices and the revealing age of some of the photographs. This is followed by a
fan of the popular culture magazine, After Dark, which often featured
nude or near-nude male actors, dancers, and other performers, the young man
becoming so aroused by the images that he finally twists the magazine itself
into a cock, placing it between his legs.
De
Rome ends this mish-mash of a short movie in what was truly shock in the day, a
series of cum shots from cocks of various sizes, shapes, and races. I suppose,
if nothing else, this short piece must be remembered just for that startling
pairing of Kenneth Anger-like “fireworks” (some moments seemingly stolen from
his 1953 film Eaux d'Artifice) and the buckets of semen with which this
small work closes. But, frankly, I’d rather forget this ill-composed piece that
doesn’t really know which direction it wants to move except for release.
Los Angeles, November 15, 2023
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (November
2023).
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