Tarantino's latest film is an entirely inglorious bastardization of history, but with undeniable flare. It's one of the most captivating things I've seen on screen in a while. I don't always enjoy Tarantino's over-stylization and gratuitous violence, but the film references, overlapping genres, stylization, characters, and story of
Inglorious Basterds (yes it's spelled like that) really hit the spot. I wish I could have watched it twice before trying to share my opinion on this film, but alas, here I am.
Brad Pitt plays a Nazi-scalping commander of a troop of soldiers known as the "Bastards" who mercilessly hunt and kill Germans in WWII. They're a cartoonish exaggeration of hatred and violence that act out the desire for people to always remember the evil of the Holocaust, but this isn't their movie. Instead, this film is a rewriting of history in which several plots come together and revenge fantasies progress toward ending the war in a more abrupt fashion.
The first twenty minutes of this film build suspense so simply and effectively over one conversation between two men in a small house that I think film students will study it for years to come. Everyone knows that Tarantino is known for doing everything over-the-top, but this scene is restrained, tense, and engaging. The camera work is brilliant, and film geeks will spend so much time trying to catch each reference--such as the fitting music from
The Battle of Algiers--that you forget to notice how long the scene drags on. The second attempt to drag out suspense in the same fashion that occurs in the basement bar scene does not carry the same grace as the first scene, but contrasts shockingly with the much more graphic conclusion. In this way it is terribly effective.
I think of all the confusions of genre that make up this film, one of the most brilliant is the pairing of the high Romance in the utterly unromantic scene in the projection room near the end of the film. I cannot say what conspires in this film, but Tarantino captures all the conventions of a romantic finale in the most unconventional way, which is particularly fitting just after the reversal of the Cinderella story that occurs a few moments before.
Because this movie exists almost entirely apart from reality it works well as a cathartic, revenge-centered drama instead of any kind of Holocaust denial, even though it develops the leading Jewish character from victim to oppressor. The leading Nazi character is incredibly well fleshed-out for the fact that almost every level to the character is deplorable. On the other hand, this character, Colonel Landa, bestows a kind of elegance and sophistication to the utterly self-serving, brutal, and ultimately capitalistic leader of the SS. The charm and decorum of the so-called "Jew Hunter" serve to show the talent behind this performance.
In all the praise I have for this film, I feel obligated to mention that the violence is almost unbearable to watch. In a film that is thoroughly enjoyable, it is also sickening. Although Tarantino is often accused of reveling in the violence of his films, one cannot help but notice the self-conscious moment of watching Hitler laugh at the violence in a piece of German propaganda just moments after catching oneself laughing at the darkly humorous violence on screen. In fact, the whole film turns into a metacinematic piece through the integral involvement of the cinema in the unfolding story. The cinema becomes, artistically and literally, a way to deal with the emotional horror of a savage part of world history without being bound by all the shades of complexity found in reality.
