I saw Inglorious Basterds yesterday. It is the latest movie from Quentin Tarantino. This movie is set in the 1940's World War II and is about a bunch of Jewish soldiers with one mission: to kill as many Nazis as possible.
I have been a fan of Quentin Tarantino's ever since I saw Pulp Fiction. And I have seen most of his movies including Jackie Brown, Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill Vol I and II and Deathproof. Each of his unconventional and convoluted movies have been a testament to splendid film-making. While I rate Jackie Brown as his most accomplished work, Pulp Fiction remains my favourite. But the others are also great cinema. Coming back to Inglorious...it seems that Tarantino has lost some of his magic in this one. Inglorious is certainly a good movie and a lesson in accomplished film-making of the Tarantino type, but it lacks the typical Tarantinoesque ediginess associated with his work.
The story is set at the time of World War II and is about a group of Jewish soldiers led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) who are out for Nazi scalps. They are dropped behind enemy lines with a mission to kill Nazis and to assasinate the Nazi High Command with the help of agents like Frou von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger). There is a parallel plot of Shossana(Mélanie Laurent) whose entire family was killed by the SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). She escapes the massacre and is later seen running a cinema in German occupied Paris under the identity of Emmanuelle Mimieux. The Germans happen to hold the premiere of a Nazi propaganda film in Emmanuelle's theatre and she realizes that the presence of a number of high-ranking German officials in her theatre is an opportunity to exact revenge and decides to burn down the theatre. Meanwhile the team led by Lt. Raine is also ready to bomb the theatre and assassinate the Nazi top brass.
While the story is supposed to be about the Basterds, there is very little we see of them. Instead the movie is mostly centered around the other characters like the Jewish survivor Shoshanna and the German officers specially SS Colonel Landa. Infact as I see it the movie is more about Landa than anyone else. He is a sly, devious and evil character, very confident and egoistic about his abilities and very opportunistic. He is genius at understanding people and convincing them and has an incisive way to deal with people on his own terms. And this character is brought out with remarkable conviction by Cristoph Waltz. No wonder he won an acting Oscar for his portrayal of Landa. In fact all actors give good performances except perhaps Eli Roth and to some extent Brad Pitt. Pitts portrayal of a no-nonsense American Officer tough good lacks soul and depth and is forgetful. In contrast Laurent's act of a young and vulnerable Shosanna nee Emanuelle with nothing but anger and hatred for all Germans simmering under her beautiful exterior is more deep and convincing.
Besides Shosanna and Landa there are other interesting characters which remain with you. And interestingly all of them are Germans characters like war hero and actor Frank Zoeller (Daniel Brühl) who is smitten by Emanuelle and seems earnest in his affection for her, He even convinces Goebbels the Nazi Propaganda Minister to premiere his movie in Emannuelles's theatre. In fact it is the German characters who are more fleshed out and deep. for example theres Major Dieter Hellstrom of the Gestapo who comes out as the consummate professional with keen senses and is brave enough to die for his men. Then their is the Staff Sargent Wilhelm father to Maximilian who just wants to return home to his new born son. And there is the Iron Cross wearing German officer who when asked to divulge German positions by Lt. Raine replies sarcastically yet forcibly 'I respectfully refuse sir".
The Germans also have some of the best lines, like in the basement bar scene, when in a stand-off with guns pointed at each others genitals, it is Major Hellstrom who puts things into perspective for his opponent when he reminds him that "...no matter what happens to anybody else in this room the two of us are not going anywhere". The bar scene is one of the two best scenes of the movie, the other being the one in which Col. Landa so cunningly persuades a French farmer to admit to hiding a Jewish family and reveal their hiding place. And among all these significant essays the Basterds seem like cardboard cutouts straight out of a war comic. They are merely mechanical killing machines programmed to kill and scalp Nazis. The climatic scene where the two basterds go about killing Nazis in the theatre almost mechanically looks hilarious. In fact the more realistic violence is seen a little earlier in the propaganda movie 'A Nations Pride' being exhibited in the same theatre.
In Tarantino's movies the characters are always far-fetched and strange, yet there is something in them that makes them realistic and rooted in the story. With Basterds this is not the case. The Basterds don't seem to matter in the movie, while the other characters and their idiosyncrasies drive the whole plot. Some sub-plots are neither required nor integral to the movie and needed to be completely discarded. Example the Fuhrer and Goebbels. And finally whats the point in showing Hitler dying at the hands of a couple of Basterds when we all know nothing of that sort ever happened. It seems the director is weaving a myth around the characters both the good and the bad ones.
The movie seems all black or white so unlike Tarantino. This is where the question arises: what was the point of this movie. There is certainly no homage or inspiration to any genre or style of film-making as with other Tarantino works. This film is pure Tarantino with long conversational pieces punctuated by bursts of action. But by his standards this movie is flawed and wanting. Prima facie it seems that this is Tarantino's posturing to Hollywood (the politics of Hollywood not the art) because a movie like this with Nazi whacking basterds can only be made in Hollywood, and nothing earns more brownie points in Hollywood than an anti-Nazi movie. Yet one cannot deny that Tarantino has time and again defied the established with genre-bending movies. Maybe he is mocking everything the movie seems to portrays and is asking the audience to decide either to approve or deny his flaws.
I have been a fan of Quentin Tarantino's ever since I saw Pulp Fiction. And I have seen most of his movies including Jackie Brown, Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill Vol I and II and Deathproof. Each of his unconventional and convoluted movies have been a testament to splendid film-making. While I rate Jackie Brown as his most accomplished work, Pulp Fiction remains my favourite. But the others are also great cinema. Coming back to Inglorious...it seems that Tarantino has lost some of his magic in this one. Inglorious is certainly a good movie and a lesson in accomplished film-making of the Tarantino type, but it lacks the typical Tarantinoesque ediginess associated with his work.
The story is set at the time of World War II and is about a group of Jewish soldiers led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) who are out for Nazi scalps. They are dropped behind enemy lines with a mission to kill Nazis and to assasinate the Nazi High Command with the help of agents like Frou von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger). There is a parallel plot of Shossana(Mélanie Laurent) whose entire family was killed by the SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). She escapes the massacre and is later seen running a cinema in German occupied Paris under the identity of Emmanuelle Mimieux. The Germans happen to hold the premiere of a Nazi propaganda film in Emmanuelle's theatre and she realizes that the presence of a number of high-ranking German officials in her theatre is an opportunity to exact revenge and decides to burn down the theatre. Meanwhile the team led by Lt. Raine is also ready to bomb the theatre and assassinate the Nazi top brass.
While the story is supposed to be about the Basterds, there is very little we see of them. Instead the movie is mostly centered around the other characters like the Jewish survivor Shoshanna and the German officers specially SS Colonel Landa. Infact as I see it the movie is more about Landa than anyone else. He is a sly, devious and evil character, very confident and egoistic about his abilities and very opportunistic. He is genius at understanding people and convincing them and has an incisive way to deal with people on his own terms. And this character is brought out with remarkable conviction by Cristoph Waltz. No wonder he won an acting Oscar for his portrayal of Landa. In fact all actors give good performances except perhaps Eli Roth and to some extent Brad Pitt. Pitts portrayal of a no-nonsense American Officer tough good lacks soul and depth and is forgetful. In contrast Laurent's act of a young and vulnerable Shosanna nee Emanuelle with nothing but anger and hatred for all Germans simmering under her beautiful exterior is more deep and convincing.
Besides Shosanna and Landa there are other interesting characters which remain with you. And interestingly all of them are Germans characters like war hero and actor Frank Zoeller (Daniel Brühl) who is smitten by Emanuelle and seems earnest in his affection for her, He even convinces Goebbels the Nazi Propaganda Minister to premiere his movie in Emannuelles's theatre. In fact it is the German characters who are more fleshed out and deep. for example theres Major Dieter Hellstrom of the Gestapo who comes out as the consummate professional with keen senses and is brave enough to die for his men. Then their is the Staff Sargent Wilhelm father to Maximilian who just wants to return home to his new born son. And there is the Iron Cross wearing German officer who when asked to divulge German positions by Lt. Raine replies sarcastically yet forcibly 'I respectfully refuse sir".
The Germans also have some of the best lines, like in the basement bar scene, when in a stand-off with guns pointed at each others genitals, it is Major Hellstrom who puts things into perspective for his opponent when he reminds him that "...no matter what happens to anybody else in this room the two of us are not going anywhere". The bar scene is one of the two best scenes of the movie, the other being the one in which Col. Landa so cunningly persuades a French farmer to admit to hiding a Jewish family and reveal their hiding place. And among all these significant essays the Basterds seem like cardboard cutouts straight out of a war comic. They are merely mechanical killing machines programmed to kill and scalp Nazis. The climatic scene where the two basterds go about killing Nazis in the theatre almost mechanically looks hilarious. In fact the more realistic violence is seen a little earlier in the propaganda movie 'A Nations Pride' being exhibited in the same theatre.
In Tarantino's movies the characters are always far-fetched and strange, yet there is something in them that makes them realistic and rooted in the story. With Basterds this is not the case. The Basterds don't seem to matter in the movie, while the other characters and their idiosyncrasies drive the whole plot. Some sub-plots are neither required nor integral to the movie and needed to be completely discarded. Example the Fuhrer and Goebbels. And finally whats the point in showing Hitler dying at the hands of a couple of Basterds when we all know nothing of that sort ever happened. It seems the director is weaving a myth around the characters both the good and the bad ones.
The movie seems all black or white so unlike Tarantino. This is where the question arises: what was the point of this movie. There is certainly no homage or inspiration to any genre or style of film-making as with other Tarantino works. This film is pure Tarantino with long conversational pieces punctuated by bursts of action. But by his standards this movie is flawed and wanting. Prima facie it seems that this is Tarantino's posturing to Hollywood (the politics of Hollywood not the art) because a movie like this with Nazi whacking basterds can only be made in Hollywood, and nothing earns more brownie points in Hollywood than an anti-Nazi movie. Yet one cannot deny that Tarantino has time and again defied the established with genre-bending movies. Maybe he is mocking everything the movie seems to portrays and is asking the audience to decide either to approve or deny his flaws.
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