Inglourious Basterds

I went into Tarantino's latest entirely open minded. I have loved as many of the man's films as I have disliked, and "Death Proof"- his previous effort- appeared entirely self indulgent and mere masturbation. So entering the packed cinema I was prepared for anything and I was more than ready to be objective.
What was delivered to me over the next two and a half hours had me riveted, this was cinema- it is an irreverent romp through a rewritten Second World War, it is entertaining, unpredictable, hillarious, violent and thoroughly subversive. It plays on the audiences expectations of a war film, on our preconceptions of good guys and bad guys. "Basterds" re-packages the concept of an action movie and boy does it deliver.
Before we delve into the ins and outs of how this is acheived, lets have a look at context. Each of Tarantino's films can be seen as an excercise in a genre- Resevoir Dogs was his Noir, Pulp Fiction was a Post-modern look at the genre of it's title, Jackie Brown his soul power action movie, Kill Bill his Samurai film, and Kill Bill Volume II his 70's American action TV show. What then is Basterds? It fits into a shameful little era of post war exploitation/propaganda films which revelled in the American gun-ho kick some ass attitude. A group of hard core brats go in and teach the European rats a bit of American style justice. The title of the film is taken from a 1978 Italian/American film, "The Inglorious Bastards". A sleazy piece of exploitation with Fred Williamson at the helm and the telling tagline; "whatever the dirty dozen did, they do it dirtier!" Tarantino's effort is also in the wake of a good 40 or so years of films teaching us the evils and tragedies that took place between '39 and '45. To the cynical film viewer they are an instant invitation to the Oscars (we're talking Schindler's List, The Pianist, Enemy at the Gates, etc.). He is making mass homicide, pure evil and country invasion fun and I'm not complaining.
The controversially long opening scene of the film sees the utterly maniacal central villian, Col. Hans Landa (an extroardinary Cannes winning perormance by Christoph Waltz) engaged in a cat and mouse verbal bout with an honourable French farmer. Landa, appoitned as the Jew hunter of Nazi occupied France, is in pursuit of a Jewish family he believes to be under the floor boards. This sequence in itself is an exceptionally skilled piece of film making and could easily stand on its own- from the photography, to the acting, pacing and dialogue. But what most impressed me was the way in which the key weapon which is employed is not the guns, nor the farmer's axe, they are not even used as points tension. The weapon, and it is as deadly as any other, is language itself. Landa employs different languages at different points in the conversation to trap, alienate, re-assure and finally to prevent the family from escaping. The power of language is a concept prevalent throughout the film, and is the key element in many of Basterds pivotal scenes. Tarantino is perhaps a smarter man than many give him credit for.
Even more important than language though in the film is playing on the audiences expectations. We are given smart ass hero's to applaud and then we see them commit barbaric vigilante acts. We are given villians to despise but then they act honourably. The rationality audiences bring to the cinema is toyed with gleefully- a figure will appear who could well be the film's central protagonist and within minutes he is full of bullets. Most of all though Tarantino subverts our knowledge of history, in his mind World War II is virtually a blank canvas for him to fill with machine gun bullet holes. With Inglourious Basterds he declares himself a revisionist.
I will not dwell on the performances because they are all masterfully executed and worthy of 500 words each, so I will only mention one more; that of Brad Pitt's. His tongue in cheek approach to "Burn After Reading" impressed and surprised me. Here was a Hollywood star who could genuinely mock himself. The self awareness of it only added to the comical wit of the performance, and he does this again in "Basterds" but in a far more subtle manner. His interpretation of squad leader Aldo Raine presents a hilarious parody of the all American hero going in and saving the world. He is on the verge of being an anti-hero, or not a hero at all, and he pulls this off complete with overdone Southern drawl. Pitt is becoming a master of deliberate over-acting and he does it with flare and control.
Quentin Tarantino has his audiences trapped in their seats and knows he can do anything he wants with them. He is a prankster and a puppet master, controlling not only every element that occurs on the screen but also the audience themselves. We laugh when he tells us to and stop as soon as the baseball bat smashes a Nazi's face in. We scream when he wants, cover our eyes when he dares us not to, and sitting in the darkened cinema I began to feel like the audiences reactions were being conducted by a man who is now beginning to prove he truly is a master of his art.

So there we have Killerby's first ever blog post, back soon kids.