Inglourious Basterds is the newest film from Quentin Tarantino. It's a WWII epic starring Brad Pitt. Tarantino basically describes Basterds as a men on a mission style movie. The basic premise is there's a group of Jewish-American soldiers in France, who lead a apache-resitance i.e. scalping the Nazis they meet, against the Germans. Eventually they get the opportunity of a lifetime, to blow up a cinema of leading Nazis who are attending a premiere of Goebbles' latest propogranda film. After the apparent flop of Death Proof, particulalrly here in England (I loved the film by the way) Tarantino said that he wanted to make a good movie before the decade was out. And, I think he's done it!
Inglourious Basterds is classic Tarantino. But what does that actually mean? Well, when I say that what I think I mean is a brilliant mix of lengthy yet quotable dialogue, conversations that seem to go nowhere for minutes on end, strange angles, slightly over-the-top characters and just - well - crazy violence. Now I guess that list could kind of sum up the film but - let's face it - who am I to sum up a 2 and a half hour long film with a stupid list like that. The point is, there's just something about Basterds that feels like a classic Tarantino film. It isn't so over the top it's completely ridiculous, at least I don't think so, but it's not a dead serious war movie. It's a movie movie. A Tarantino movie.
We hold on long conversations for unbelievable lengths of time that the suspense is almost unbearable. For me it almost got the point where I got, not bored, but started to question what the hell was going on untill - there you go, something happens and the dialogue and suspense pays off. You'll hopefully understand when you see it. There's so much suspense and anticipation that you start to enjoy and really relish the dialogue and listen intently, honing in - hoping and hoping that the suspense is somehow relieved. There's disgusting and often quick graphic violence and to me, everything that makes a awesome Tarantino movie. The 'dead guy' shot, the bare feet, didn't spot red apple cigarettes though. Just don't go in expecting action after action scenes because it's not like that at all. The action that you do see is very graphic and it's amazing what Tarantino gets you as the audience to laugh at! It's quite strange and surely shows what powerful cinema it is. Also, I would say don't go in expecting to see Brad Pitt all the time. He's only in a small portion of the film, as are the rest of the Basterds.
The film is sectioned up, like most Tarantino films, into seperate chapters. This kind of helps give a certain pacing and structure to the film that lets you know where you are and eases you in to what could be a complex story. We jump in time, and from France to England in the first three chapters, but it feels controlled.
So, yeah there's Brad Pitt. Also amongst the Basterds is the pyschotic Eli Roth, AKA the Bear Jew, Til Schweiger as Hugo Stiglitz and Omar Doom as Omar Ulmer. The scenes with the basterds are so Tarantino-ingly funny and grusome at the same time, it's just so fun to watch. The dialogue, the one liners, everything adds to that movie movie feel. By that I mean a movie that doesn't try to be overly clever or pretentious, it recognises the fact that it is a movie and exploits that, going to extremes and pushing the boundaries because... it's a movie. It can! Mike Myers plays British General Ed Fenech, sounds like strange casting but it works, and we're also treated (if you can say that) to seeing Goebbles and Hitler on screen! Diane Kruger plays a famous actress Bridget von Hammersmark and Mélanie Laurent stars as the French cinema owner Shosanna Dreyfus. Most notebly Christoph Waltz gives a spine-shilling but equally hillarious performance as Col. Hans Landa of the SS. This film really is about the characters and their exchanges and the diversity of characters and stories is interesting. For instance we start by seeing Shosanna narrowly escaping execution from Hans Landa only to find her owning a cinema next time we see her. The film essentially centers itself around a plot to blow up said cinema and kill the nazis inside, and there's something really cool about watching a film about this. Essentially it's world war two characters, in that WWII world but we're watching a film about a cinema and a propoganda film, and how a bunch of basterds are going to blow it up. It's brilliant.
Because of this diversity of characters a good chunk of Basterds isn't in English. Characters speak French, German and even Italian and are obviously subtitled. I'm not a huge fan of reading subtitles as it distracts from watching the action but it definietly gives the film an edge and a realism that stands out.
But that's about as real Basterds gets. This is a Tarantino film but set in the premise of WWII. It's not a telling of actual event or a realistic imagining of an event that could occur. It's a Tarantino story in the world of WWII. So just don't be expecting realism, okay?
For instance, David Bowie's in the soundtrack. Which clearly doesn't fit but just shows how this is supposed to be seen as movie movie - it doesn't have to fit or particualrly make sense. All of the soundtrack is taken from other films. I didn't recognise any of the score so from my perspective it just seemed like an orginal score. And it did everything a score should do.
Overall
So that's about it. I'm not quite sure how to round off other than by saying you really need to see this film! It's Tarantino doing his stuff in the realm of WWII and it's amazing. Hopefuly it will become a classic of cinema. It may just be his masterpiece.
