When I was in high-school, I was just beginning to learn what it was all about. I, frankly, had no idea what I was looking at when I saw the first trailer to Kill Bill Volume 1. I thought, perhaps, I was looking at just a
nother action film. Sword Play? What else? I just didn’t know. And I didn’t know what all the excitement was about when Brett Sullivan and Camillo Alvear were downright giddy over the release of Volume 2. To just about anyone on campus - these characters, Ian Nunley, Kenny Hawley and Jack Reynolds not excluded, were THE FILM CRITICS. These kids had some seriously good taste in movies - and, in true Foothill Technology Highschool style, a killer combination of brains and talent to back up their opinions. These were the kids that always took the assignment to the next level. Not only that - they were already forging indie films; playing with motion, pacing, suspense, cinematography and dramatic tension. So, later, when I finally took the time to sit down and absorb Tarantino’s films... I did so with their perspectives and good taste in mind. Late
r, in college, when I had my first taste of the sticky greens- my evening was met with a finally of watching Pulp Fiction... quietly... by myself... in my room. Up until this point I hadn’t really enjoyed myself. It would not be until later that I would come to enjoy being ripped from the fabric of consensus reality and entering the realm of the shaman. And, I can say with certainty, no other group of chemicals effects me quite as profoundly as the ickiest of the dankiest. That shit STILL throws me for big loops.
But the terrifying, heart-racing madness of the evening all changed when I went to lay down and watch Pulp Fiction. Depth perception sent awry - I was put face to face with Samuel L. Jackson and forced to savour every syllable as he lay his wrath upon a quivering Brad. I had fallen in love. From then on, I could not help but feel complete satisfactions in Tarantino’s long and involved dialogue sequences. They were to be enjoyed for their every nuance and juxtaposed against events entirely unpredictable - both thrilling and brutal. Nobody else made films that satisfied as deeply.
So, when I say that last night “my Tarantino experience came full circle,” I can only wish that others be privileged enough to watch this film in the company of good friends that share a common appreciation for everything good a Tarantino movie can be. I would like to thank these characters, specifically Camillo and Brett - for kicking off the night for me and, in return - I plan to greet you with much gratitude and the ut
most “reciprocation.”
Inglourious Basterds begins with a breathtaking scene. The shots are colorful, symbolic and deeply indulgent in terms of physical depth and creative use of background. It is not uncommon in this film to notice how either background imagery or sound is influencing the meaning of the events in the fore. Sometimes it is a face, perhaps a barking dog - or maybe, in the case of the opening scene, a panning of the french country side through a series of small windows, giving the audience a chance to see a wide panoramic shot of what is “going on outside” without ever leaving the room in which the dialogue is taking place. So, when the lady of the property gracefully moves her hanging laundry to reveal a noticeably black coated party of Nazi soldiers on a long, rising and falling, trail, through the green rolling hills gently kissing the blue sky, right to the front door - you know that this film is going to be visually arresting because of it’s sheer beauty, careful attention to detail and teeth-grinding tension. Over and over - you will have both your senses and your poetic “sensibility” indulged. Oh, and “behind the scenes” sort of people - the costumes are AWESOME! I loved the clothing. The Nazi’s look like motherfucking nazis. Wunderbar!
The dialogue in Inglourious Basterds is much more meaningful and, dare I even say, more immediately relevant to the plot than other Tarantino films. Still though, classic Tarantino dialogue. The intensity and subtleties that the actors express are riveting and the entire mood of a scene can change with the drop of a sentence. At first, the audience was put in the uncomfortable position of deciding when it was
appropriate to
laugh and when it was appropriate to sit, hands sweating, at the edge of one’s seat in complete anticipation of the outcome. Tarantino, as opposed to switching scenes entirely, switches up emotions and brings the audience through a trail of ups and downs, switching from the comical to the dramatic at the drop of a hat. I suspect that not all critics will appreciate this - as it seems inappropriate to bring laughter into a scene when the lives of innocent people are so... deliciously at risk of complete slaughter.
I say to these critics: Fuck em’.
Like life, this movie will throw you a full spectrum of emotions - and it is not uncommon to juxtapose them rapidly at a pace
which keeps the two and a half hour movie fresh and unpredictable. It is impossible to watch a scene with any sort of certainty as to how you should feel or what you should expect - so you are left with no expectations - completely at the mercy of Tarantino’s baffling shifts of whit, use of almost comical amounts of gore, of violence, and his “more traditional” approach to cinematic “high art.” At it’s campiest: Kill Bill. At it’s most dramatic: Shindler’s List.
And it works. Oh my gods, does it work.
Tarantino is delightfully shameless in his use of mashing up classical film-making techniques you’d expect to find in classics like Casablanca with over-dubbing you might expect in a Kung Fu movie.
Once again, you fucking high-nosed tools of Satan’s media: It works.
When you’re through seeing the film - you’ve experienced a feeling of catharsis - as one is left to wonder: “Is that really what I wanted to see at the end of Escape from Sobibor and Shindler’s List? Isn’t that what I really wanted to see at the end of Saving Private Ryan?” The answer is “yeah.” As a kid, you were always wondering how cool it would be to run into a room full of high ranking Nazi officials and just “do it.” Just, shamelessly “do it.” The same way, they “did it” to all those innocent humans. Finally, the shit hits the fan for the Nazi party. And it feels amazing.
If you thought that this movie was too violent or that the shameless murder of Nazi’s is anything less than psychologically liberating - you’re a tool. You’re a tool and you have no idea how much bitter atrocity and suffering that war caused and you are a fool for thinking that we don’t deserve to see fascism die a poetic and thrillingly over indulgent death on the big, huge, gigantic silver screen. After a childhood of History channel - I personally needed to see this this movie. After studying the heart-wrenching battles on the Eastern Front, the combat between Stalin’s USSR and Hitler’s Nazi Germany, you cannot help but pump your fist in total, rock-concert-esque glory at some points in this film. There was nothing good about the Nazis or their outlook on what it meant to be a human - and frankly, although the symbolism and outfits have changed, that mentality lives in so many dark corners of America, that, to me, this film speaks to the ailing heart. This is a feeling that I can only conclude I share with Tarantino. I say this because there are multiple references to the German viewpoint of how Americans treated the “lesser races” and the “slaves” of “their” country. The Nazis call it like it is - giving rise to the darkness in all of our hearts and pull it onto the screen so that it might be mangled, burned, shot and DESTROYED! I mean, really - how many REALLY AWESOME World War 2 movies are there? LOTS. How many movies indulge that little voice that says: “wouldn’t it be great if...?” Oh yeah. ONE. And this movie is called Inglourious Basterds.
10/10
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