Inglorious Basterds
August 25th 2009 05:30
Dir: Quentin Tarantino (writer )
Genre: Quentin Tarantino
Running Time: 153 mins
Chapter One of Inglorious Basterds begins in France during the Nazi Occupation, where Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) survives the bloody execution of her family at the hand of the cruel and sadistic Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Shosanna re-appears later in occupied Paris, where she is now the owner and operator of a cinema.
Of the Basterds, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) leads a volunteer group of Jewish soldiers to engage in targeted acts of violent retribution against any accessible Nazi target. Dubbed by their enemy as “The Basterds,” Raine’s squad teams up with a German actress and double agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a suicidal mission to take down the entire leadership of Nazi Germany.
This creative piece of cinema fiction by Tarantino has a look and feel that is instantly recognizable. The film is brilliantly costumed and propped. The characters are both caricatures and composites, thereby telling a deep and painful truth, whilst honouring the reality of what happened in WWII. Tarantino is willing to kill any of his characters, and he does, in the pursuit of this greater truth.
This film is really five films in one, a quintet in fact, or five chapters or scenes. The scenes have a cohesion and structure that is typically Tarantino. Each perhaps a little long, and complete in themselves, but together make a whole greater than the sum of the parts. The blood lust is abundant, the violence only to be expected, but which serves the story well. Tarantino also appropriates film genres well, the subtitled European drama, now a successful Tarantino trademark. He also successfully appropriates the gritty WWII genre, with style and panache.
There were many attempts on Hitler’s life, two of which we know took place in Paris – though none were at a premiere for a film. One of Tarantino's doomed heroes is an expert on pre war German cinema. So the use of film history, the location for the assassination and use of film during the assassination is at the very least Tarantino’s message to us of the power of film – a case of celluloid being mightier than the machine gun perhaps?
This may be Tarantino’s best film to date. I loved this film for its wit, even the parody of the British High Command by Mike Myers, the attention to detail, and the fact that this film serves it up to the Nazi’s big time. I loved it. although I respect the fact that the big T. is not to everyone’s taste, this film is truly marvelous.
4.5/5
Genre: Quentin Tarantino
Running Time: 153 mins
Chapter One of Inglorious Basterds begins in France during the Nazi Occupation, where Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) survives the bloody execution of her family at the hand of the cruel and sadistic Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Shosanna re-appears later in occupied Paris, where she is now the owner and operator of a cinema.
Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent)
Of the Basterds, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) leads a volunteer group of Jewish soldiers to engage in targeted acts of violent retribution against any accessible Nazi target. Dubbed by their enemy as “The Basterds,” Raine’s squad teams up with a German actress and double agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a suicidal mission to take down the entire leadership of Nazi Germany.
'I want my scalps', so says Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt)
This film is really five films in one, a quintet in fact, or five chapters or scenes. The scenes have a cohesion and structure that is typically Tarantino. Each perhaps a little long, and complete in themselves, but together make a whole greater than the sum of the parts. The blood lust is abundant, the violence only to be expected, but which serves the story well. Tarantino also appropriates film genres well, the subtitled European drama, now a successful Tarantino trademark. He also successfully appropriates the gritty WWII genre, with style and panache.
There were many attempts on Hitler’s life, two of which we know took place in Paris – though none were at a premiere for a film. One of Tarantino's doomed heroes is an expert on pre war German cinema. So the use of film history, the location for the assassination and use of film during the assassination is at the very least Tarantino’s message to us of the power of film – a case of celluloid being mightier than the machine gun perhaps?
This may be Tarantino’s best film to date. I loved this film for its wit, even the parody of the British High Command by Mike Myers, the attention to detail, and the fact that this film serves it up to the Nazi’s big time. I loved it. although I respect the fact that the big T. is not to everyone’s taste, this film is truly marvelous.
4.5/5
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