The Tenth Victim

The Tenth Victim

A very good day to you once again, mortals.

Today, I learned about two very interesting things; this blog will cover the second, my viewing of The Tenth Victim (La Decima Vittima).

The Tenth Victim is a 1965 movie originally written and dubbed in Italian. This film is about a fictional version of the world in which violence and murder has been legalized under certain circumstances. One can become a "Hunter", which obligates them to participate in ten hunts; five as the hunter, five as the victim. As the hunter, they know everything about the victim; as the victim, they know nothing about the hunter. Once they have completed their ten hunts, they receive one million dollars (not really worth it in my eyes).

Now, this movie is a freaking masterpiece. I mean, on the level of Birdemic masterpiece, except the comedy is intentional here. Seriously, let me give a few reasons for why this is so incredible:

The justification for  legalizing hunting of other humans is that it is the pressure valve for humanity; by allowing people to hunt and kill others, wars and other general conflicts can be avoided. An actual line in the film was "If the Big Hunt had existed in 1940, then Hitler would have been a member, and the Second World War would have never happened".

Now, I don't pride myself on exceptional knowledge of World War 2, but I know enough to understand that Hitler didn't exterminate Jews to satisfy some need to kill. Hitler wasn't Dexter. The primary reason for the Holocaust was because it was commonly believed that the Jews were not only an inferior race to the superior German pure race of Aryans, but that the Jews were actively slowing down the country, and caused the loss of the First World War.

While this is hilarious (the implication that Hitler caused the Holocaust out of a blood-lust  not the Holocaust itself), this is nothing compared to the rest of the movie. The main antagonist, a female American hunter by the name of Caroline Meredith, has a deal with Ming, "the largest importer of tea into the United States", that she will kill her next target, the protagonist, an Italian man named Marcello Poletti, on camera at the temple of Venus in Italy as a publicity stunt. So, now she has to get him there and kill him, but he knows someone's coming. SO, here's her solution: she seduces him, and then, while he sleeps in the beach water-tower they're in, a truck comes in and crane-lifts them up and off the beach, and then to the temple.

Who came up with that idea???

You have to get a guy to the temple of Venus? Better get a crane ready!

Meanwhile, he had his own scheme to kill her involving a catapulting deck chair, a pool, and a crocodile. Genius.

The true beauty of this movie, however, is in the last ten minutes. So, after crane-lifting Marcello to the temple so they can have cameras on him when she shoots him, she (after some hesitation) shoots him and then says her line "You live longer with Ming Tea," (ironic).

Then, however, when no-one's looking, his body disappears.

Long story shorter here, they have a back and forth of killing each other in which neither of them dies, and then his ex-wife and mistress turn up and start shooting. Eventually, Caroline and Marcello escape, drive to an airstrip (how they drove onto an active airfield unimpeded, I don't know), and get on a plane. Guess what? It's a marriage plane, with a priest wandering around and marrying couples sitting next to each other. When they reach Caroline and Marcello they then proceed to force them to marry at gunpoint.

This movie makes no sense whatsoever; it's amazing, but there is so much random here I can't even describe it well. Just go and watch it.

I just wish it would tell us what happened to the crocodile. And Rudi. 

My best guess so far is that Rudi and the crocodile got married in a similar manner.


Anyway, that's that. The best thing I've seen all day. Possibly all week.

That's enough from me for now. I'll probably post about the other thing tonight, mortals. Until then, praise the Emperor of Mankind.