Inglourious Basterds
Inglourious Basterds is not history, nor is it meant to be historically accurate. Inglourious Basterds uses history as a setting and a story with which we are all too familiar, and it twists it in a way many of us have thought of, if only for a moment. The old hypothetical question about going back in time and choosing to kill Hitler before his recorded end - Tarantino's taking on that question, and anyone familiar with his work knows what the answer is going to be.
Inglourious Basterds is not a horrendously violent or gory film, however - at least not by the standards of the group I went with. We were expecting a lot more killing and blood, and I don't think it would have bothered us if there had been more. After a lifetime of hearing about the Holocaust - people digging their own graves, starvation, rape, experimentation, lampshades of human skin - true revenge fantasies necessarily get dark quickly. Other reviewers might be cringing in horror, but not this one. Even in a Tarantino movie, Hitler and his top men get off lightly.
But that's because this film is about Tarantino at play in the sandbox of the past. Sometimes that means that characters go on a bit long or details that could be cut are left in. But just when I found myself growing impatient with a scene, I would see what Tarantino was trying to do and I was able to marvel at it. And don't get me wrong, I don't like all of Tarantino's films and I can be quite impatient. I wanted to kill those bitches in Death Proof so that the movie could actually get somewhere. But I didn't feel that sort of frustration at Inglourious Basterds.
Rather, the audience seemed to take it in the spirit of fun, and I concurred with them. Tarantino plays with villains and heroes, making some absolute and others gray. He plays with history through wonderful sets and costumes and allowing things that absolutely did not happen. He plays with the power of film both inside the script and outside of it.
While I don't believe that Inglourious Basterds is Tarantino's masterpiece, it is enjoyable - but it demands to be met on its own terms, and that is something that some viewers will not be able to do. It is not simply a revenge fantasy or an alternate history or an homage to Westerns. It is not trying to be a drama or a comedy. It is exactly what it's trying to be, as difficult as that may be to accept. And Inglourious Basterds doesn't give a damn if people demand that it be serious because it references some of the most grave events in recent history.
Inglourious Basterds is not a horrendously violent or gory film, however - at least not by the standards of the group I went with. We were expecting a lot more killing and blood, and I don't think it would have bothered us if there had been more. After a lifetime of hearing about the Holocaust - people digging their own graves, starvation, rape, experimentation, lampshades of human skin - true revenge fantasies necessarily get dark quickly. Other reviewers might be cringing in horror, but not this one. Even in a Tarantino movie, Hitler and his top men get off lightly.
But that's because this film is about Tarantino at play in the sandbox of the past. Sometimes that means that characters go on a bit long or details that could be cut are left in. But just when I found myself growing impatient with a scene, I would see what Tarantino was trying to do and I was able to marvel at it. And don't get me wrong, I don't like all of Tarantino's films and I can be quite impatient. I wanted to kill those bitches in Death Proof so that the movie could actually get somewhere. But I didn't feel that sort of frustration at Inglourious Basterds.
Rather, the audience seemed to take it in the spirit of fun, and I concurred with them. Tarantino plays with villains and heroes, making some absolute and others gray. He plays with history through wonderful sets and costumes and allowing things that absolutely did not happen. He plays with the power of film both inside the script and outside of it.
While I don't believe that Inglourious Basterds is Tarantino's masterpiece, it is enjoyable - but it demands to be met on its own terms, and that is something that some viewers will not be able to do. It is not simply a revenge fantasy or an alternate history or an homage to Westerns. It is not trying to be a drama or a comedy. It is exactly what it's trying to be, as difficult as that may be to accept. And Inglourious Basterds doesn't give a damn if people demand that it be serious because it references some of the most grave events in recent history.