Inglorious Basterds (15.)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Starring Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Christophe Waltz, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger. In English, German, French. Partly subtitled. 148 mins
Let’s not get carried away with talk of a Return to Form but this definitely bears more than a passing resemblance to pre-Kill Bill Tarantino. After Death Proof the idea of ever enjoying a Tarantino film again seemed absurd but this is this summer most euphoric cinema experience.
Yes, there are indulgencies and deficiencies - Tarantino has a verbosity and love for the sound of his own voice that would shame a contributor to Late Review. When two or more of his characters sit down you know that they are going to jaw your damn ear off. The line being pushed is it’s a Spaghetti War Film and there are surface similarities; it’s certainly a film that refuses to be hurried. When Sergio Leone spent ten minutes building up to a shoot out you marvel at the audacity; when QT does it your instinct is “he’s dragging this out a bit, isn’t he?”
More fundamentally, Basterds resembles a spaghetti western in that it is an abstraction of its genre. It’s not a Second World War film, it’s a Second World War Film film; any resemblance to the events in Europe between 1941 and 1945 are entirely coincidental. Yet it isn’t simply a tired exercise in rehashing stuff he liked in other war movies. It has life and originality – try to avoid all the pre-publicity and see it as quickly as possible because everybody who’s seen it will be bursting to blab on to you about it and spoil its surprises.
The title sets you up for a Dirty Dozen style movie. A group of Jewish soldiers are parachuted into occupied territory with a simple mission – kill as many Nazis as possible. But once they’ve been set up the movie largely ignores them; the narrative jumps about in time and location and from side to side to take in American, French, English and German perspective.
Brad Pitt is a marvel as the leader Aldo Raine. Done up like a constipated Clark Gable and employing a thick southern accent, he doesn’t turn up till twenty minutes in but his appearance is the moment the movie clicks; its his performance that persuades you to buy into its tone of swaggering caricature.
Basterds has moments of extreme violence (when Raine demands a hundred Nazi scalps from each of his squad, that’s literal) but the violence is not what overwhelms you about IB, it’s the sheer naked bloodlust it generates, a demented self righteous wish fulfilment desire for indiscriminate gruesome vengeance.
The Nazis are now the last acceptable receptacle of pure hatred and having Jewish people hunt and kill Nazis is the only sanctified way to express such rabid contempt. Even so, watching it with a big audience who are “into” the film is disturbing – you almost feel sorry for the Nazis.
Since Jackie Brown, Tarantino has devoted himself to fairly futile attempts (Kill Bill Vol II, Grindhouse) to replicate and elevate the kind of exploitation cinema he grew up on, and with Basterds he finally clinches it. It’s talky, tricky and insanely original and as crude as Michael Winner’s Death Wish. Slower Nazis Hunters - Kill! Kill!
Directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Starring Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Christophe Waltz, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger. In English, German, French. Partly subtitled. 148 mins
Let’s not get carried away with talk of a Return to Form but this definitely bears more than a passing resemblance to pre-Kill Bill Tarantino. After Death Proof the idea of ever enjoying a Tarantino film again seemed absurd but this is this summer most euphoric cinema experience.
Yes, there are indulgencies and deficiencies - Tarantino has a verbosity and love for the sound of his own voice that would shame a contributor to Late Review. When two or more of his characters sit down you know that they are going to jaw your damn ear off. The line being pushed is it’s a Spaghetti War Film and there are surface similarities; it’s certainly a film that refuses to be hurried. When Sergio Leone spent ten minutes building up to a shoot out you marvel at the audacity; when QT does it your instinct is “he’s dragging this out a bit, isn’t he?”
More fundamentally, Basterds resembles a spaghetti western in that it is an abstraction of its genre. It’s not a Second World War film, it’s a Second World War Film film; any resemblance to the events in Europe between 1941 and 1945 are entirely coincidental. Yet it isn’t simply a tired exercise in rehashing stuff he liked in other war movies. It has life and originality – try to avoid all the pre-publicity and see it as quickly as possible because everybody who’s seen it will be bursting to blab on to you about it and spoil its surprises.
The title sets you up for a Dirty Dozen style movie. A group of Jewish soldiers are parachuted into occupied territory with a simple mission – kill as many Nazis as possible. But once they’ve been set up the movie largely ignores them; the narrative jumps about in time and location and from side to side to take in American, French, English and German perspective.
Brad Pitt is a marvel as the leader Aldo Raine. Done up like a constipated Clark Gable and employing a thick southern accent, he doesn’t turn up till twenty minutes in but his appearance is the moment the movie clicks; its his performance that persuades you to buy into its tone of swaggering caricature.
Basterds has moments of extreme violence (when Raine demands a hundred Nazi scalps from each of his squad, that’s literal) but the violence is not what overwhelms you about IB, it’s the sheer naked bloodlust it generates, a demented self righteous wish fulfilment desire for indiscriminate gruesome vengeance.
The Nazis are now the last acceptable receptacle of pure hatred and having Jewish people hunt and kill Nazis is the only sanctified way to express such rabid contempt. Even so, watching it with a big audience who are “into” the film is disturbing – you almost feel sorry for the Nazis.
Since Jackie Brown, Tarantino has devoted himself to fairly futile attempts (Kill Bill Vol II, Grindhouse) to replicate and elevate the kind of exploitation cinema he grew up on, and with Basterds he finally clinches it. It’s talky, tricky and insanely original and as crude as Michael Winner’s Death Wish. Slower Nazis Hunters - Kill! Kill!
