It’s set in the future. Social order is maintained by offering the populace legalised regulated violence in the form of the Big Hunt. If you sign up for this you participate in ten hunts, five as victim and five as hunter. In the unlikely even that you survive all ten you receive fabulous riches and of course fame and adulation.
The idea of social control by means of violence as entertainment has been used many times in science fiction movies, notable examples being Rollerball, The Running Man, Lucio Fulci’s Warriors of the Year 2072 (1984) and to a lesser extent Turkey Shoot (1982). But The 10th Victim marks the real beginning of this sub-genre.
Marcello Poletti (Marcello Mastroianni) and Caroline Meredith (Ursula Andress) are both getting close to successful completing their ten hunts. Now Caroline is to be the huntress and Marcello the victim. The twist is that in the Big Hunt the hunter is given complete information about his victim while the victim has no idea of the identity of the hunter coming after him.
Caroline has been following Marcello about but while it has crossed his mind that she is the assigned huntress he cannot be sure. If he could be certain he could kill her. The victim has every right to kill the hunter. But there’s another twist. If he kills an innocent person by mistake he will face a long prison term. That adds a lot of interest to the plot. Even if the victim, in this case Marcello, is 98% sure of the identity of the huntress he can’t take the risk of killing her. He has to be 100% sure.
Marcello operates a sideline, a kind of religious cult known as the Sunsetters. This was going well until their meetings started being disrupted by violent bands of enraged neorealists.
There’s plenty of flirting going on between Caroline and Marcello. She may just be toying with her prey. She might also feel some sexual attraction towards him. He might be attracted to her. But they’re both experienced participants in the Big Hunt which means they’re experts in deception.
There is of course also the possibility that they’re not sure about their own feelings.
I don’t honestly think this movie has any political axe to grind. It takes swipes at both oppressive governments and corrupt capitalists. This is a dystopian future but it’s not a stereotypical left-wing or right-wing dystopia. In fact it’s a lot more like the actual world we live in in 2024. It certainly takes a few satirical swipes at the worlds of advertising and entertainment.
I shudder to think of the ways in which critics and film scholars of today would try to read the ideological obsessions of the 2020s into this movie. This movie is much more an exercise in style and pop artiness than any sort of political film.
At this period no Italian filmmaker was capable of making a non-stylish movie but this one really has style to burn. And imagination.
What makes this movie so very 1965 is that it’s a heady mix of pop culture and art. What also makes it very 1965 is its willingness to get seriously crazy and surreal. This is not just a futuristic world. It’s a world of wild fantasy, both aesthetically and in plot terms.
It’s also a genre mash-up. This is a science fiction movie and a thriller and an offbeat romantic comedy. While this movie is not based on a comic book this was a period at which a slight comic-book feel was starting to become apparent in both British and European movies.
Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress are sexy and charismatic. Andress gets to wear some very cool glamorous sexy outfits, and she knows how to wear them.
The 10th Victim is a wild crazy ride and it’s very highly recommended.
The Blue Underground Blu-Ray looks terrific.
I've also reviewed the novel, Robert Sheckley's The 10th Victim.
No comments:
Post a Comment