In the near future, big wars are avoided by giving individuals with violent tendencies a chance to kill in the Big Hunt. The Hunt is the most popular form of entertainment in the world and also attracts participants who are looking for fame and fortune. It includes ten rounds for each competitor, five as the hunter and five as the victim. The survivor of ten rounds becomes extremely wealthy and retires.Incredibly dated, but the satire still works. The version embedded below is dubbed in English.
via Daily Motion:
Slant Magazine gives it 4 out of 5 stars, calls it "a pop-art melting pot," and says, "Elio Petri's trenchant social satire, co-written by the director and frequent Antonioni collaborator Tonino Guerra, takes aim at consumer capitalism and the society of the spectacle". DVD Talk calls it "a clever and insightful satire on modern morality and Western culture's fascination for violence." Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 83%.
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Satire and sci-fi. What more could one ask for in a movie? Dated, yes, but it gave me a peek at what life was like back in the 60s.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I'm seeing those fashions again! lol
DeleteI think the sci-fi fansin Sweden (I, certainly) got quite a bit cold all over in 1997 when "Expedition Robinson", the reality show that was later picked up in the US as "Survivor", started,. The first participant who was ever voted out, Sinisa Savija, came back home and killed himself. Unbelivably, the controversy soon died down and it became one of the most popular shows on television, with imitators like "Big Brother" and what have you. Bullying and mob law as entertainment. I hated it, but had friends who actually called it "so interesting, psychologically". Clearly, we had different experiences and different ideas of "interesting".
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the makers of films like these saw it coming or if they thought they were doing something completely outrageous.
I can't watch those "game" shows The ads have always been more than enough for me.. When the point seems to be making contestants feel horrible I have trouble being interested. I don't like most game shows, tho, no matter how friendly they seem, because I don't like the winning-is-everything mentality.
DeleteI think this film address the public spectacle concept -the rabid consumer voyeurism- that places what the consumer hungers for above every moral issue.
Oddly, they seem to be able to turn everything into a competition. Last year, we had an "Americans come to Sweden to seek their ancestry"-competition! You could see them being grossed out by pickled herring for breakfast (who does that?) and I don´t remember on what grounds one person was shipped back home every week, but it was quite stunningly ridiculous.
DeleteI read an interview with one television producer in just this morning´s paper, stating that "we have never had so much good television as now, nor have we had so much shite". That may be true. For sure, there has never been as MUCH television as now.
We do not subscribe to any of the pay TV options, so all we get are free over-the-air broadcasts. There's never anything on (well, except for the occasional mystery); and when there is (Big Bang Theory is a favorite of my husband), the number of commercials makes it unwatchable for us. When I used to watch TV at Mother's where there was cable there was still precious little on.
DeleteI don't have a very competitive spirit, and the meanness of these "game" show concepts is distasteful to me. Isn't it sad that they could turn genealogy into a competitive activity. I would think that would lend itself better to a cooperative endeavor.