Inglourious Basterds
URGA MOTW
Inglourious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino is back, this time full of spelling errors. Inglourious Basterds is once again distinctly Tarantino, blending a style of cinematic techniques from old to new, with an intriguing World War 2 story featuring music from the 1970s.
The film is told in 5 chapters, which nicely fit the structure of a story: Chapters 1 & 2, Introduction; Chapter 3, Rising Action; Chapter 4, Complication; Chapter 5, Climax and Denouement. Here we have two parallel stories which only meet at the climax, but it's quite well told and fits together well.
It's 1941, in Nazi Occupied France. A Gestapo officer, Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), known as the Jewhunter, uncovers a Jewish family being hidden by a French dairy farmer. The daughter Shoshana escapes, but the rest of the family is slaughtered. Entirely separate to this, a squad of American Jewish soliders - the Inglourious Basterds, led by Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) - are dropped into France and go about their mission - to kill Nazis. Some of what they do is quite graphic, but this is a Tarantino film, so it's only to be expected. By 1944, the Basterds have a reputation that reaches as high as the Fuhrer, and Shoshana is running a cinema in Paris. Things begin to collide when Joseph Goebells is convinced to hold a movie premiere of his latest propaganda piece at Shoshana's cinema, culminating in Operation Kino planned by the British and American military, and Shoshana's personal revenge running in parallel. This leads to an explosive and bloody finale, as you'd expect.
There's some interesting stylistic choices made in this film - and all of them fit well - so these are complaints, in fact, mostly they are compliments! The 5 chapter setting works well and each chapter does not feel too long or drag, despite the length of the final film (2 hrs 30 mins). Several scenes are long, drawn out dialogue scenes, but they are acted and directed with such care that you are hanging on every word and don't get bored. In other words, they don't feel long despite being well over 10 minutes of just talking.
As you would expect based on the setting, the spoken languages are French, German and English, but there's many scenes which are purely in French or German, so there's a lot of subtitles to read. Occasionally a word or two is subtitled in the original language (e.g. 'Merci' or 'Oui') and yet later in the same conversation, the subtitle becomes English ('Thankyou' and 'yes') when the word is used again. This is obviously a deliberate choice on the part of Tarantino, and it's certainly something interesting I noticed. The other thing about the subtitles is that in scenes where there is both German and French being spoken, the language subtitled will depend on the character we are focusing on. When Shoshana, using her public identity as Emanuelle, is in a discussion with several Nazi officers including Goebells, there are no subtitles when German is spoken, only when French is spoken - this allows us, as an English speaking audience, to feel the same sense of confusion as she does.
Other interesting points: There are several different fonts used in the opening titles, depending on who is being credited (main stars, secondary stars, guest stars, and crew) and this is yet another style that makes you feel like this is not your ordinary movie. As mentioned above, some of the music used is anachronistic (David Bowie) but it works well, and occasionally there are on screen special titles indicating which people are specific characters - something that could have been put in dialogue, but the onscreen drawing works just as well.
A great choice Tarantino has done here is to cast mostly unknown French and German actors, only using Brad Pitt as the one "big star" as a drawcard. Pitt is a great actor (as can be evidenced in his many films) but he doesn't really get to shine much in "Basterds". His character is fairly one-note, and he does it well, but there's not enough depth for the audience to make much of an emotional connection to him. The big hit of this film is German actor Christoph Waltz, who steals pretty much every scene he's in, no matter whether he's speaking German, French, English or Italian - I'd be surprised if he wasn't fluent in all of those languages in real life.
Comparitively speaking, there's far more dialogue than action in this movie, but it's such compelling dialogue that you can be forgiven for not noticing until it's over. Don't expect too many long and drawn out fist- or gun- fights as there are in other of Tarantino's movies. There's a few of both here, but not as many.
Highly recommended. I don't think it's quite as classic as Pulp Fiction or Resevoir Dogs, but certainly worthy of the Tarantino ouvre.
8/10
Inglourious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino is back, this time full of spelling errors. Inglourious Basterds is once again distinctly Tarantino, blending a style of cinematic techniques from old to new, with an intriguing World War 2 story featuring music from the 1970s.
The film is told in 5 chapters, which nicely fit the structure of a story: Chapters 1 & 2, Introduction; Chapter 3, Rising Action; Chapter 4, Complication; Chapter 5, Climax and Denouement. Here we have two parallel stories which only meet at the climax, but it's quite well told and fits together well.
It's 1941, in Nazi Occupied France. A Gestapo officer, Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), known as the Jewhunter, uncovers a Jewish family being hidden by a French dairy farmer. The daughter Shoshana escapes, but the rest of the family is slaughtered. Entirely separate to this, a squad of American Jewish soliders - the Inglourious Basterds, led by Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) - are dropped into France and go about their mission - to kill Nazis. Some of what they do is quite graphic, but this is a Tarantino film, so it's only to be expected. By 1944, the Basterds have a reputation that reaches as high as the Fuhrer, and Shoshana is running a cinema in Paris. Things begin to collide when Joseph Goebells is convinced to hold a movie premiere of his latest propaganda piece at Shoshana's cinema, culminating in Operation Kino planned by the British and American military, and Shoshana's personal revenge running in parallel. This leads to an explosive and bloody finale, as you'd expect.
There's some interesting stylistic choices made in this film - and all of them fit well - so these are complaints, in fact, mostly they are compliments! The 5 chapter setting works well and each chapter does not feel too long or drag, despite the length of the final film (2 hrs 30 mins). Several scenes are long, drawn out dialogue scenes, but they are acted and directed with such care that you are hanging on every word and don't get bored. In other words, they don't feel long despite being well over 10 minutes of just talking.
As you would expect based on the setting, the spoken languages are French, German and English, but there's many scenes which are purely in French or German, so there's a lot of subtitles to read. Occasionally a word or two is subtitled in the original language (e.g. 'Merci' or 'Oui') and yet later in the same conversation, the subtitle becomes English ('Thankyou' and 'yes') when the word is used again. This is obviously a deliberate choice on the part of Tarantino, and it's certainly something interesting I noticed. The other thing about the subtitles is that in scenes where there is both German and French being spoken, the language subtitled will depend on the character we are focusing on. When Shoshana, using her public identity as Emanuelle, is in a discussion with several Nazi officers including Goebells, there are no subtitles when German is spoken, only when French is spoken - this allows us, as an English speaking audience, to feel the same sense of confusion as she does.
Other interesting points: There are several different fonts used in the opening titles, depending on who is being credited (main stars, secondary stars, guest stars, and crew) and this is yet another style that makes you feel like this is not your ordinary movie. As mentioned above, some of the music used is anachronistic (David Bowie) but it works well, and occasionally there are on screen special titles indicating which people are specific characters - something that could have been put in dialogue, but the onscreen drawing works just as well.
A great choice Tarantino has done here is to cast mostly unknown French and German actors, only using Brad Pitt as the one "big star" as a drawcard. Pitt is a great actor (as can be evidenced in his many films) but he doesn't really get to shine much in "Basterds". His character is fairly one-note, and he does it well, but there's not enough depth for the audience to make much of an emotional connection to him. The big hit of this film is German actor Christoph Waltz, who steals pretty much every scene he's in, no matter whether he's speaking German, French, English or Italian - I'd be surprised if he wasn't fluent in all of those languages in real life.
Comparitively speaking, there's far more dialogue than action in this movie, but it's such compelling dialogue that you can be forgiven for not noticing until it's over. Don't expect too many long and drawn out fist- or gun- fights as there are in other of Tarantino's movies. There's a few of both here, but not as many.
Highly recommended. I don't think it's quite as classic as Pulp Fiction or Resevoir Dogs, but certainly worthy of the Tarantino ouvre.
8/10