Cinema is at the heart of Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Inglorious Basterds’ (The misspelling is intentional). To be more specific it’s the power of Cinema, more than anything else, which is at the forefront of this remarkable film.
As the Poster and Trailers serve to remind us. The film is ostensibly about a team of Jewish-American Soldiers who lead an Apache resistance against the Nazi’s. Their goal is to be as cruel to the Nazi’s as they are to pretty much everyone else...oh and they do so by collecting their scalps. As it is though that comprises about 20% of the film, while the rest is dedicated to Cinema owner Shosanna, who we see escaping the massacre of her family at the film’s opening. She crosses paths with Frederick Zoller, a now famous Nazi who fended off 300 Allied soldiers all on his own and is the subject of the propaganda film ‘Nations Pride’. Given that he’s smitten with the young Cinema owner it only seems right that the premiere be held at her Cinema.
That’s really all I’m going to give away about the plot, except to say that cutting a swathe through all this is Colonel Landa, who goes by the moniker “The Jew Hunter” for reasons that should be obvious. All of these plots do come together, though not in the way people will expect (Unless you’re one of those who decided to read the leaked script first and spoil all the fun).
The film is a step up for Tarantino, a director who was already quite comfortably “Up there” to begin with. It no longer feels like he’s cribbing influences and just mixing them together (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, even despite all that Tarantino has held his own voice, albeit one that’s influenced by other film makers). However with this film Tarantino has created something that although seems influenced by other genre’s (Western, exploitation) is in fact a complete original work of art. Gone are the moments where well read Cinemagoers will exclaim “Well that’s just from a little known John Sturges film”. It’s heavily influenced by all movies and yet...it doesn’t feel like it is.
I appreciate that this has turned into more of a love letter than any kind of review, and I’m not going to apologise for that. I’m sorry I just won’t! The performances are universally great across the board, though if I do have a minor complaint is that outside of Brad Pitt as Aldo Raine and ‘Hostel’ director Eli Roth as Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz, the other ‘Basterds’ get the short shrift. As with every other review for the film I’m going to have to give credit to Christoph Waltz as Landa. Tarantino said that Waltz could go toe to toe with Samuel L Jackson in turning his words into poetry, and he’s right. The fact that Waltz does it while speaking 4 languages is quite a remarkable achievement. If he’s doesn’t win every major acting award there is then it just exposes awards ceremonies for the shams that most people already think they are.
I walked out of this with the same feeling I had walking out of ‘There Will Be Blood’, utterly convinced that we don’t have to look back in the annals of film to see masterpieces. They’re right in front of us.
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As an addition I should say I’m working on another piece about this film, but I want to wait until the film has been on release for another few weeks and most people have had the chance to see it.
