One Hell of a Basterd

Now I don’t know ‘bout y’all, but I sure as hell didn’t come down from the goddam Smokey Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half of Sicily, and jump out of a fuckin' aeroplane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity.

And we have yet another bold and quixotic film thrown into our frozen laps by the indefatigable Quentin Tarantino. Does he never get tired of infusing his works with all that LIFE?

Inglourious Basterds is very remotely inspired from the World War II classic The Inglorious Bastards. It’s wartime in 1941... and whoa, we witness an express chain of events involving zee heartless and insensitive Germans (of course), a lone vengeful Jewish heroine (hey, it’s a movie) and American knights in armour swaggering and staggering under the weight of their bravado.

The first thing that strikes you about the film is its utter lack of morals. There is no good vs. evil, no retribution or remorse, not a trace of melancholy. The Nazis are victims, and the Jews are – well, Nazis. This is an unabashed Tarantino offering that boasts of nothing but a slick storyline, fine acting and neat technique. Clearly, the man wants to show us another cult film, not a war epic or Holocaust mournfest. To all those who would have liked a more human angle – I’m sure it’s nothing personal.

Brad Pitt proves for the nth time that he’s not just a looker, and wins everybody’s trust and liking with the much-publicised ‘’I want my scalps’’ speech. The versatile actor carries off a colourful ‘’hick’’ accent with such panache, you’d think the authentic Tennessee fellas would be put to shame. His language is an entity by itself and deserves an Academy award with or without its owner – remember Gorlomi and his Italian drawl?

Pitt plays Lt. Aldo Raine, leader of the Inglourious Basterds, an outlawish outfit that actually consists of bushwackin’ guerilla American SS soldiers, as he eloquently puts it. Their mission? To strike fear into the lives and minds of Nazis. By hook or by crook, be it military ambushes or elaborate theatre bombs, they get it done. Looks like G.I. Joe's back in the raging forties - Go Joe! You're so swept away by the merry men that you forget they're no more than cold-blooded terrorists. In fact, Tarantino fans will chuckle appreciately at the scene where Pitt casually orders one of his command to club a man to death. An incident that would make many sick if they read about it in the papers - such is the inexplicable charisma of T's film making. He's the ultimate puppet master - making you clap and cheer when you never imagined you would.

Saying that, it’s a pity that the dashing bunch of disturbingly ruthless boys gets such little screen time – maybe T would like to rename the film ‘’Also Includes the Basterds’’?

A parallel story revolves around Shoshanna/Emmanuelle (Melanie Laurent), a French Jew whose family is brutally murdered. She assumes a new identity after making her escape, and spends the remainder of the movie coolly plotting revenge.

There is a poetic significance in the fact that though the band of basterds and the stray girl have identical agendas, methods and ends, they never cross paths. There is a constant fear of a huge mix-up and everything going bust, but the puppet master nimbly switches all the strings in time, and drops one into free fall. The girl's abrupt death is poignant – in real life, things DO go wrong, and a single rebel IS weak...

Hitler (Martin Wuttke) is portrayed as a grotesque two-dimensional caricature, a static stack of cards to be knocked down – which was probably the only way to do it. Had the focus been on his cruel ideologies and military prowess, the film would lose its flair and become unpalatable. Moreover, the Basterds would not win – and then what would we raise our beers and cowboy hats to?

The true antagonist of the film is Hans Landa, a senior Nazi officer with a snakelike personality nicknamed the ‘Jew Hunter’. He is introduced in the very first scene when a farmer’s house is raided. It is surprising how the pleasant conversation and pipe-smoking takes on a menacing air lent by his latently lethal aura. Not many actors can make you sweat by asking for a glass of milk! There is no dramatic background score or overt gestures – only Landa’s unmoving Machiavellian face.

In contrast, his vicious strangulation of Fraulein Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) rudely wakes you up to the inner barbarism of polished tyrants. Landa changes his masks throughout the film, finally ending in a clever twist when he sacrifices the Third Reich in exchange for American citizenship and an unconditional pardon. An immaculate performance that will remain as imprinted in cinema as the swastika carved onto his forehead – Christopher Waltz is worthy of the Cannes Best Actor award he received for it.

OST – The soundtrack is fitting in every detail and yet unobtrusive. The French and German dialogues are supported by mellow German orchestra or country, and for the action scenes, Tarantino has delightfully picked out music with strains of Western influences – notably White Lightning by Charles Bernstein. Slaughter by Billy Preston is reminiscent of Kill Bill – trademark QT alarm bells.

Completely unsuitable for a WWII film, these tunes pack a subtle punch and drive home the romantic Americanisation of the subject. Simply glourious.



This article was published at http://theviewspaper.net/film-review-inglourious-basterds/ on The Viewspaper http://theviewspaper.net