With the third Hunger Games doing the rounds in cinemas, this screening of Elio Petri’s dystopian 1960s classic felt both totally of its time yet entirely modern.
Set in a near-future Italy, war had been eliminated in favour of a state-sanctioned Big Hunt, in which each citizen repeatedly fought another to the death, alternating between hunter and victim.
This adaptation of Robert Sheckley’s story followed the sizzling pairing of the great Marcello Mastroianni (La Dolce Vita) and iconic Bond girl Ursula Andress (both on top form).
The 10th Victim’s influence on filmmaking is rightly huge, with movies from Battle Royale to The Running Man lifting plot wholesale and the oddball tone of True Romance, Mr And Mrs Smith and countless others recalling Petri’s distinctive gonzo romantic comedy.
That said, there remains no other film quite like this. Blending satirical stabs at celebrity culture and social conformity with a ponderous existential melange, on one level, this was a charmingly laid-back sci-fi/comedy thriller. On another, it was a surreal attack on traditional thinking launched in distinctively colourful style.
Boldly, brilliantly bizarre, this was a gloriously mad hour-and-a-half it would be impossible to forget.
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