Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Inglorious Basterds

Whenever I settle back to enjoy a Tarantino film, before the lights dim, I ask myself one question: Which Quentin Tarantino directed this film? Was it the mindlessly-blood-loving and comical Tarantino (Kill Bill/Death Proof), or the mindfully-blood-loving and comical Tarantino? (Pulp Fiction, Resovoir Dogs) To say the least, I think what makes or breaks his movies is whether he says "to hell with it," and a blood bath ensues, or he says "to hell with it, but let's also try to say something here," while a more profound blood bath ensues. Whichever kind you enjoy more, solely depends on what kind of a mood you're in. In this case, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, falls into that second category.

Everything you want in Tarantino film is there: long intense dialogs, mexican stand-offs (yes, they actually even do acknowledge it in the movie), and lots of blood when called for (Not on the "kill bill scale" but tastefully done for Tarantino standards). Nazis are clubbed to death with baseball bats, scalped, and have their foreheads carved with the swastika. Dialogs are long and intense, and deal with one party knowing something the other doesn't (like a family of Jews underneath the floorboards on which inquiring Gestapos are standing). The screenplay is a literary achievement, made more visually stunning with Tarantino's aesthetic.

Using Brad Pitt as a marketing tool for this film was a thoughtful strategy, because it helped fill a few more seats with viewers who wouldn't have come had they known he was only in one-third of the movie. It's true - and he's not charming Bradd Pitt we knew from LEGENDS OF THE FALL. He's a toungue twangin', scalp cuttin', quarter italian', Nazi hater, who's sole purpose is kill as many Nazi's before the war's over.

If there is an actor in the film audiences should seek out, it is German veteran Christoph Waltz, whose portrayal as the "Jew Hunter" is so passionately passive-agressive he reminds me of a Nazi version of Hanibal Lector. He plays every scene with an obsessively compulsive sense of sadistic control I knew after the first scene he was bound to appear on an AFI list somewhere. Not only does he leave a trail of slime everywhere he walks, but his eyes stare daggers into the hearts of every innocent victim who falls under the spell of this trusting gaze. By the end of the movie every viewer wishes death to him - I promise you that.

The other two-thirds of the film tracks the vendetta of a young, and beautiful, French Jewish woman, who witnessed her parents murdered by the hands of "The Jew Hunter." However, both stories culminate at the premiere of a Nazi propaganda film, where a single sniper is hurrayed for picking off over 300 American soldiers. It seems to me, the movie isn't about Bradd Pitt, as the posters may suggest, but more about Tarantino's continual exploration of human violence. In this film, the Nazi's were satiated by the graphically violent slaughter of their enemies. Then, the tables turn and we, as the audience, see high ranking Nazi officials and their posse gunned down like trapped farm animals and we're (not surprisingly) wickedly aroused by it. More so, is the un-settling revelation Mr. Tarantino has bestowed upon us - how are we different from the Nazi's if we'd love to kill whom we hate? Granted, we haven't killed them, but merely witnessed, and loved every minute of it.