"La decima vittima" (1965) is a surreal and satirical science fiction film directed by Elio Petri, based on the short story "The Seventh Victim" by Robert Sheckley. Set in a dystopian future where war has been abolished, violence is channeled into a state-run global television program: The Great Hunt, a ruthless competition in which "hunters" and "victims" face each other in duels to the death, selected on a rotating basis by international clubs.
A precursor to reality TV and a precursor to the Hunger Games saga, the film reflects on the collective addiction to spectacularized violence and the commodification of death.
But in this duel between good and evil, right and wrong, between the acceptance of human violence and the attempt to pigeonhole it within "civilized" rules, who is the real winner? Only those who drink a double helping of Ming tea! Because the real weapon, insidious and omnipresent, is advertising: cynical, insinuating, unscrupulous, always ready to transform every tragedy into an opportunity for profit.
