Hermit Cinema: Inglourious Basterds

The problem with Quentin Tarantino movies, and it’s a nice problem to have mind you, is that people view them more as a cultural event than a movie. So let’s take a step back for a moment and take an overall look at Tarantino’s catalog for a moment.

His feature-length directing career seems to divide itself into two phases. There’s what I’ll call his Elmore Leonard Phase: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. These all take place in a criminal underworld that the straitlaced only suspects, profiling happenings and relationships with their own rules, rituals and language.

Then, for a lack of a better term, there is what I’ll call his Modern Hipster Western Phase: Kill Bill Vol. 1, Kill Bill Vol. 2 and now Inglourious Basterds. These are cultural reference-laden movies steeped in undeniable cool, utilizing plot elements  often found in traditional Westerns.

His first phase was responsible for his breakthrough and a lot of folks wish he’d never grow beyond it. The non-linear storytelling coupled with some of the best dialogue ever written made for some unforgettable scenes. The movies were like nothing anyone had ever seen before. Fact is he, more than any other director, is directly responsible for the maturation and mainstreaming of the ‘independent’ movie movement. These were great films. Though if he kept making them, I think he’d become a respected but ultimately irrelevant figure.

The second phase is in my opinion more mature and more challenging as he’s confined within a more conventional storytelling format. This is a good development for Tarantino. It limits his self-indulgent tendencies. But enough of my wannabe-film-professor analysis and let’s get to the film itself.

The movie opens with an extended, gripping scene that introduces us to the movie’s villan: Nazi SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). From that point on, he chews up every scene he’s in; more so than anyone else in the film. That’s really saying something because American Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) and his Tennessee twang do a lot of chewing as well.

Landa is an evil man, prowling France looking for Jews to exterminate. Raine and his gang of Jewish-American soldiers (the Basterds) prowl the countryside dressed as civilians, looking for Nazi’s to exterminate. Actually exterminate is an understatement. Their mission is to exterminate and dismember with a level of extreme prejudice that spreads fear within the Nazi ranks.

Meanwhile, there’s the covertly Jewish woman (Mélanie Laurent) operating a Parisian movie theater. She gets co-opted into premiering a propaganda film for Nazi VIPs including ol’ Adolph himself. Double agent and German movie star Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) is tasked with getting Allied operatives into the premiere to wreak havoc.

This movie has two of the best scenes in recent memory: the aforementioned opening and a tense scene that takes place in a basement tavern. Both are remarkable for their length. The scenes go on and on but are handled so deftly you’re drawn to the edge of your seat and kept there. They are the true mark of a master. I also like the way he approaches the historical setting. That is, he ignores history altogether. That’s a fresh approach, one that seems so obvious yet untried until now.

The weak point of the movie for me is the ending. It gets a bit cartoonish, but not in an unforgivable way. It’s too bad the whole movie doesn’t hold together or work as well as the two standout segments, but that’s understandable. It’s Tarantino. The dialogue is razor sharp. There isn’t a bad performance anywhere to be found. And you get his standard foot fetish close-up.

You’ll find flaws in this movie. But a movie this ambitious cannot be free of them. If you built a thousand-story skyscraper, it wouldn’t be a surprise to find a bathroom on the 837th floor where the air conditioning didn’t work so well. But good gravy man, just enjoy the view.

I give this DVD an A-minus.