In a futuristic society war is being avoided by creating "The Big Hunt" a pervasive game in which those who participate become either victim or hunter and have to kill/survive 10 opponents/attacks. Each "player" has 10 rounds he has to play through in which he is playing 5 times as a hunter 5 times as a victim. Once a player manages to have 10 kills he becomes part of a special league and received a huge prize in money. This situation is also a very fruitful one for TV companies who use "assassins" and their victims as a motif for their commercial adds. This is the premise for La Decima Vittima (1695) or The 10th Victim, in it's English version, a 60's pop art film directed by Italian director Elio Petri.
The main characters of the film are the American Caroline Meridith ,played by Ursula Anders, and Marcello Polletti, played by Marcello Mastroianni. The film starts off with Caroline finishing of her 9th victim using a pair of machine guns hidden in her bra. This technique will be later referenced in Austin Powers : The Spy Who Shagged Me (1997). Her next victim is Marcello, an acclaimed Italian "assassin" who has financial problems. Caroline has made an arrangement with a TV company to turn her 10th victory into a publicity stunt and thus she is obliged to kill Marcello in a certain spot while the cameras are rolling. The plot follows Caroline's attempts to get Marcello to the filming/killing spot without letting him know she is the assassin that has to kill him. Non the less Marcello starts to suspect her and comes up with his own publicity stunt to have her killed by a crocodile. Inevitably the two main characters fall in love, thus making the assassination more difficult.
The plot builds up to the ending, keeping the silly, comedic tone of the film up until now. Caroline manages to get Marcello to the designated spot and kills him at the urges of the video's director. Or so she thinks. After she leaves the scene, Marcello's body disappears. Apparently he isn't dead even though he was shoot from 2 meters away. He is waiting for Caroline near the shooting set (no pun intended) and shoot's her, from point blank range, while the director of the video and the filming crew were fast enough to reach them and catch the killing on tape, again. But Caroline isn't dead also, as we her in the next scene, with a shotgun in hand (which apparently has unlimited ammo) shooting towards Marcello. Before she actually gets him, they are being attacked by Marcello's ex-wife and a friend of her's. They get in a gun fight from which they eventually manage to escape by hopping in a car and driving away. Caroline drives them to an airport, stop on the landing strip and board a random plane. Said plane is apparently a wedding plane, filled with couples that are to be married and the two protagonists go along with the idea.
I know it's not common to give away the ending of a film but I find it hilarious and it shows the tone of the film at it's best. It's silly and over the top but I have to say I really enjoyed it. From the premise to the 60's futuristic settings to the comic book inspired backgrounds and the actors performance. This film is a really good example of 60's pop art moviemaking, showing their vision of the future, tackling issues as politics, drama, relationships and violence with a good dose of humour and parody.
Why did I bring this film up? Because I saw it in class, in relation with pervasive games and how this film inspired the creation of the rather known pervasive game "Assassins". But I'll talk about this in the next post.
"Bevi de Ming e vivrai di piu"
No comments:
Post a Comment