The first time I saw Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” I came away with the feeling that I had just seen an important movie. It’s such a unique film that I couldn’t quite get a handle on it. I went back a second time with it fresh in my mind to see if I could distill my thoughts a bit but it only gave me more to think about. I was drafting a long-winded review in my head but I put off writing about it. Upon it’s DVD release I got an opportunity to examine it a little closer. And while I don’t think it’s a perfect film (I wince every time Eli Roth comes onscreen) I do think it’s the best of the year and one of the most important films of the decade.
Here are a few reasons why:
1). This is the film that finally taught morons to read subtitles.
Let’s face it, the advertisements for the film are nothing but a compilation of the most juvenile and violent scenes taken out of their original context. Those people who went into this thinking it was a splatterfest romp through WWII got something else entirely. It’s one of the largest bait-and-switch promo campaigns in film history, one in which the title characters become supporting players in their own film.
Let’s start with the opening scene, which is essentially a 20 minute conversation between two actors, one of which isn’t even a main character. And a great deal of that conversation is in French. One of my greatest cinematic pet peeves is when characters speak English instead of their native language for the benefit of American audiences. In this case the conversation begins in French but after a few moments Colonel Landa requests that they switch to English. At this point I’m thinking “Ok, Tarantino has acknowledged the fact that they should be speaking French but has carefully made a segue into English so this thing will play to the frat boy crowd.” But then I realize something brilliant is going on. There’s actually a reason for switching to English – Col. Landa doesn’t want to alarm the French-speaking Jews hiding underneath the floorboards. This sets the tone for the rest of the film, which to my surprise and delight, turns out to be a story about the complexity, subtlety and beauty of language. I’d say about 80% of this film is spoken in French, German or Italian.
What follows about an hour after this opening conversation is without a doubt the most entertaining thing I saw all year. We have three German-speaking members of The Basterds deep undercover as SS Officers meeting with German actress-turned-spy Bridget Von Hammersmark in a French bar filled with Nazis. They try to maintain their cool under the pressure of an increasingly suspicious Gestapo Officer while being forced into a party game in which they have to guess a person’s name written on a card on their forehead. There are so many layers of deception and identity going on in that scene that it’s astounding. And of course there is the language. While the Gestapo officer has no trouble discerning the Frankfurt and Munich accents of two of the undercover Basterds, he is puzzled by the seeming English accent of Lt. Archie Hickox. I will admit that during the first two viewings I couldn’t tell the difference between the German spoken by the guy from Munich and the German spoken by the Brit, but on the third viewing I knew to listen more closely, and by god I could hear it! The tension eventually builds until you can’t take it anymore, and even though it ends in an orgasm of shocking violence (as many Tarantino scenes do) you really have to appreciate how it gets there.
Once I realized what Tarantino was doing with the language in this film I fully expected large groups of people to start walking out. A packed Saturday night crowd on opening weekend most likely didn’t come to see a foreign film. But everyone was just as riveted to the screen as I was. And as we were exiting the theatre I was very surprised to hear no complaints at all. People were actually phoning their friends to tell them to see it immediately. My faith in humanity was briefly restored.
2). The Best Movie Villain in Recent Memory
When was the last time you have seen someone as well written and superbly acted as Colonel Hans Landa? Remember how Hannibal Lecter was so menacing because he was the most intelligent person in the film? But what happens when you put something like that in a position of power? When asked about his role as Colonel Landa, Christoph Waltz claimed that the whole character was all right there in Tarantino’s script. I’m sure Tarantino deserves much credit but Waltz is certainly being modest. His Landa never gives away his true intentions until it’s too late and you realize that he’s been one step ahead of our heroes at every turn. And if he wasn’t such a self-serving fascist you would almost have to admire him. He’s the most fleshed out character in the film and you could go so far as to say that even though he is the villain, he is the main character this story. They say that heroes are only as strong as their villains and what Tarantino and Waltz have created here is one of the best villains ever to grace a movie screen.
3). The End of Holocaustsploitation?
“Holocaustsploitation” is a term that hasn’t quite caught on in English vernacular and I kind of hope it doesn’t. I use it here to describe the glut of films in recent years that have mined the Holocaust for entertainment value. Regardless of whatever Spielberg’s intentions were with “Schindler’s List” (and I have no doubt that they were good) it has become clear that the shortest path to an Oscar nomination (outside of playing someone who is mentally ill) is to star in a holocaust film. It’s the ultimate “serious subject” genre. You could spend days debating the relative merits of films like Life is Beautiful, Jakob the Liar, The Pianist, Black Book, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Definance, The Reader and many others. In most cases you would probably find good intentions but some larger questions remain. Is it ethical to fictionalize something so sensitive and traumatic? Is there an inherent guilt in watching these films for entertainment? What issues are we still dealing with 75 years later that cause filmmakers to continually return to this era? Go back and view Alain Resnais’ 1955 documentary “Night and Fog” about
the German death camps. It’s certainly not enjoyable but I think every human being should watch this at least once. And then ask yourself, “Is there anything more to be said about the Holocaust”?
I think there’s a fine line with these types of films and each one is potentially dangerous and irresponsible. And sometimes we don’t realize where that line is until we’ve crossed it.
So where does Inglourious Basterds fit in? On the surface it looks like it could be the type of irresponsible film I was just talking about. Yet it somehow maintains a precarious balance on that line and then in the last few minutes completely obliterates it. One thing it does is that other than the first scene in which Shoshanna’s family is murdered, there are no images of oppressed Jews. No concentration camps, no piles of bodies, no serial numbers. The Jews in this film are all empowered and angry. This alone sets the film apart. Inglourious Basterds is simply the revenge film to end all revenge films. The issues that continue to spur on the creation of new Holocaust films? Tarantino sets out to solve them. The issue for most of us, I think, is the pent-up anger and frustration that we will never be able to go back and put a bullet in Hitler’s head ourselves. And of course we never thought we’d see a closeup of Hitler’s face riddled with bullets and then subsequently blown up with dynamite. Tarantino has the balls to give us exactly what we’ve always wanted but never thought we’d see. If this was presented as revisionist history (like Forest Gump) we would be right to be offended. But this is really an alternate timeline in which one of our biggest wishes is fulfilled. But the real kicker is that for the most part the film is handled with such reverence and elegance, moreso than any other American war film I can recall. That’s the crux of this whole thing and what I had the hardest time wrapping my head around. You have such exquisite scenes like the two that I described earlier intercut with what can only be described as tasteless juvenile violence. It’s a film that contradicts itself as you are watching it.
My sincere hope is that after Adolph Hitler and most of the Nazi high command have been obliterated in one of the most satisfying film climaxes ever that we can put this behind us. This film offers catharsis unlike any other I have seen. I don't know what is left to be said about World War II that hasn't already been said.
I think this is a film that recognizes the characteristics of Holocaustsploitation and tiptoes carefully around it. I don’t know what Tarantino’s intentions were. Maybe it was just to create something entertaining out of the stale World War II genre, which would pretty much disprove the last few hundred words I wrote. I’m still not entirely sure what to make up of this film.
I guess I’ll just have to watch it again.
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