Thursday 27 August 2009

This Might Just Be His Masterpiece

Imagine you are Quentin Tarantino, the director of the most stylish movies in Western cinema. So stylish are your films that your involvement in them is immediately identifiable simply by their fine blend of engaging dialogue mixed effortlessly with blood-thirsty, bone crunching violence, almost rendering marketing campaigns unnecessary.

Imagine you are going to tackle the most notable event in modern political history – World War Two – as the subject matter for your next film.

When approaching the film, would you study the history books documenting the events before, during and after the time period between 1939 and 1945 – books that have been poured over by a vast swathe of directors before you? Of course you would, knowledge is the bomb. But, would you ignore them and just make one of the funniest films of the year out of one of the most melancholy topics at hand simply because you are Quentin Tarantino and you – and only you – can do so?

Of course you would.

Here you can stop imagining, because the real Quentin is far ahead of you.

The eponymous heroes of the attractively misspelt Inglourious Basterds are a band of Jewish-American soldiers sent into Nazi-occupied France to strike fear, and premature death, into the Third Reich by engaging them in an Apache Indian inspired guerrilla resistance. The leader of this Band of Badass Brothers is Lieutenant Aldo Raine, played impeccably by Brad Pitt. It would be a gross understatement to say that the Second World War was tense, but Tarantino somehow manages to crank up the intensity, leaving recovering nail-biters’ efforts in jagged, bleeding tatters. In this environment, Raine’s country charm and ruthless treatment of Nazi soldiers make him immediately likable. His ability to have fun and enjoy ‘dee-stroying’ Nazis force the audience into a nicotine-like craving for his surprisingly rare appearances.

An equally notable performance is that of Austrian born actor, Christoph Waltz, who plays Colonel Hans Landa, also known as ‘The Jew Hunter’ – a vicious wolf in a sheep’s clothing, that is if the sheep was itself dressed up as Rob Brydon. The dialogue of most characters in Inglourious Basterds is typically excellent, but Waltz and Pitt must count themselves as the lucky pair. Much of the conversation in the film is spoken in foreign languages, showing that Tarantino has avoided the terrible blunder of having French and German people speak English all of the time, thereby providing the film with a touch of authenticity and class. Such is the director’s level of respect to languages other than the behemoth of English that British actor Michael Fassbender’s character, Lieutenant Archibald Hicox, almost has his true identity unearthed due to his strange German accent when posing as a Nazi officer. Although some may ignorantly describe the subtitle approach as nothing but a moving picture book, the film benefits considerably from enforcing such a level of concentration upon the audience, because when the action comes (you never doubted for a second that it would, did you?) it is so sudden and explosive that those aforementioned nail-biters run the risk of swallowing their hand.

Like most QT productions, a suspension of disbelief is a must with this film. History doesn't just get blurred, it gets opaqued with a brand new version, so only then can you watch Inglourious Basterds and see it for the hilarious, intelligent action romp that it is.

Inglourious Basterds is the war movie you wish would have come on during those numerous rainy Sundays, before Antique’s Roadshow carried out a sluggish assault on your eyes and ears with a barrage of sentimentality for overvalued old tat. See this film and you will see Quentin Tarantino pick up the hot potato of the Second World War, strap it with TNT and blow it to smithereens, without an oven glove in sight.

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