by Rev. Snowman

So, before you get all exited that Cinema Death Fist will be covering all the latest films, I was thrilled to be able to see a new release film this summer on its opening day.  This is a rare treat for me because I happen to be fairly poor at present.  But, I was able to make it to see this great film at my hometown theater back in Chambersburg, Pa with two of my closest friends.  I was expecting to be squeezed and cramped into a crappy seat in one of the older theaters of this mall-based cineplex, one of the older ones at that, but thankfully found myself swaddled in a comfy stadium seat in one of the smaller theaters that had some occasional technical hiccups.  Overall, the viewing experience was good.

But, enough of that crap, Inglorious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, is absolutely wonderful! The film is the story of a band of American Jewish soldiers, known as the Basterds, whose mission is to kill as many Nazis as they can.  On their quest they bump into the formidable Jew Hunter, Col. Landa and his Nazi cohorts as well as two other groups whose mission it is to destroy the Nazis occupying France.  Will they put a beating on the Nazi scum? You bet they will. Boy howdy, will they!

Are you a film fan? I mean a real and true, died in the wool film fan? Not the movie of the week kind but the kind that stays awake for the Planet of the Apes franchise marathon one night and goes to see Fellini movies the next night?  Well, then this movie is for you.  I simply loved it, although the film was not perfect.  Tarantino is without a doubt one of the top five best film makers alive today.  I consider him my generation’s Hitchcock, or at least on par with the master.  All of his films are a visual treat to watch, even the mediocre ones.  Tarantino doesn’t make a bad film, in my mind, but his worst film is far better than most directors’ best work.

There are two main reasons to see a Tarantino film.  Fantastic dialogue and striking cinematography.  Both abound in this film.  The opening sequence of the film, an interrogation scene between Basterd’s Nazi villain and a poor French farmer suspected of hiding Jews, is spellbinding for it’s use of dialogue and cinematic tension.  If you see nothing else of this movie, which I know you won’t do, watch this opening scene.  The acting is superb and the conversation between the two characters, fluidly bouncing from French to English language, is beyond chilling.  I happen to be one of those folks in life who has a love affair with words and especially the spoken word.  This scene is dripping with good lines and creepy feelings all brought about by the chilling dialogue of the scene.  With this one scene, everything we need to know about the villain, Col. Hans Landa, as well as the entire Nazi regime is displayed for us.  Never has evil been so damn polite, as well as cultured and refined.  It is hard to believe a creature like Col. Landa, so suave and sophisticated, is known as the Jew Hunter for his effectiveness in finding and exterminating hidden refugees.  Sadly, I think Tarantino hit the character and the Nazi high command on the head.  The scene is stunning in the most gut-wrenching way.  It had me recalling Ralph Fiennes performance in Schindler’s List in its effectiveness at portraying Nazi terror.

Basterds is a film filled with scenes of Tarantino dialogue, but don’t forget the action and humor! I conveniently caught Tarantino in an interview on Charlie Rose this weekend (check it out online, great interview!) where he described the film as a Jewish revenge fantasy against the Nazis.  Obviously, Basterds is influenced by the many great WWII films to come before it like The Dirty Dozen and The Guns of Navarone.  Like those films, action is the center piece of this film and humor is sprinkled liberally throughout these scenes.  Brad Pitt’s performance as Lt. Aldo Raine is comic relief from beginning to end.  While, this may not be Pitt’s best performance ever, he is a hoot to watch with his swagger and puffy-lipped southern drawl.  Overall, there is a strong balance between humor, action and suspense in the film, but if you are looking for non-stop excitement of the visual effects kind, like in some war movies, you will be disappointed.  Tarantino creates a world built around dialogue and story in Basterds and reserves the violence and mayhem for the garnish.

As I mentioned earlier, for hardcore movie buffs, like myself, the real draw of cinema is the visual style and the cinematic styling of a good director.  Where would we be without Bergman’s moody black and white images or Truffaut’s visions of France?  Tarantino is a master technician when crafting a film, or at least he knows how to utilize those technical folks who are master technicians.  The film looks great but there is one scene in particular, and it is a big, big scene, that may just bowl you over.  In my title I said I wept. Well, this one scene was so good that it actually brought tears to my eyes, and not just for the emotional content.  I admit to being a weepy film-goer and am an emotional pushover, so many sequences in the film dealing with Nazi terror and Jewish atrocity had me teary, but the final conflagration scene, set in the film in a Paris movie theater, had me downright weeping for how damn good it looked.  I frequently am disappointed in modern film, but every now and then I see something that renews my faith and shows me what good film making is about. This scene did that for me in spades.  I don’t want to spoil it, since the film is only in its first week on the screen, but you will know it when you see it.  The combination of images playing on the Paris theater’s screen, a harrowingly beautiful woman cackling, the flames licking up behind the screen, the destruction all around, is breathtaking.  This is the image that will be played again and again from this movie in film classes of the future! Wow!

Tarantino has not made a perfect film, but he has made a great one with images to mesmerize and dialogue to titillate.  For my money, I would have appreciated more action scenes with the band of Nazi hunters, perhaps detailing their backgrounds in the style used to characterize Til Schweiger’s German-turned-Nazi hunter character.  I liked the occasional burst into 1970′s exploitation cinema, a favorite of Tarantino’s and my own, and was expecting more of this style, but it is only used a few times.  I think fans of his films may be a little disappointed in some places, but the real film buffs should come away enjoying it.

Finally, I do want to mention that the emotional impact of Inglorious Basterds is large, so large that some people may feel a bit queasy after seeing this film.  After the movie, I am always anxious to discuss a film in great detail with whomever I saw it with or the next random bystander who walks into view.  My friends, who watched it with me, also enjoy this discussion period, but I was rather surprised to find that both of them were shocked into silence.  One even said he felt so nauseous that he had to go home right away.  Slowly, over an hour or so I was able to tease out of my remaining friend that the film’s violence unsettled him to such a point of discomfort he didn’t want to talk about it.

The violence in this film is aplenty, which is not abnormal for a Tarantino film, but what is unique about violence in this film is the measure of restraint the director uses in how the violence is portrayed.  Tarantino portrays the violence in a more realistic and, thus subtle, way.  You feel the impact of the baseball bat upon the Nazi’s head when the Bear Jew cracks him upside his skull.  You feel it  in your gut and it is not fun. This is not cartoon violence with endless gouts of blood that might be laughable; this is violence as it might look if done to you.  I think this was a good choice on Tarantino’s part as the violence in the film becomes a grounding force so we don’t forget that we are watching a fictionalized version of real violence as it was enacted in WWII, and it has an impact whether the recipient is a German or a Jew.  Thus, the film gives us some clues into its subtext, something Tarantino admits to ignoring until long after his films are made (see that Charlie Rose interview).  Hopefully, this film will begin as many discussions as it ends.  In my case, I did get that big film discussion the next day when I saw my pals again and I wasn’t disappointed. You won’t be disappointed either when you see the Basterds cream some Nazi butt!

Inglourious Basterds (2009) Dir. Quentin Tarantino: 4.5 fists of fury . . .