Inglourious Basterds: Hurawatch

Inglourious Basterds: Hurawatch

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Quentin Tarantino's work ‘Inglourious Basterds’ is remarkable, and from the enraging, startling plot to Tarantino's eccentric directing style, itcompletely redefines traditional war movies. My take on Tarantino’s film is that it had provocative creativity ever since the director suggested a fictional conclusion to World War 2 in the film — the alternative ending where the basterds finally receive their deserved punishment.”

Boundless references to movies are present in the film. Tarantino's love for cinema is visible everywhere, from the title that is inspired by a B-movie to the unequivocal Ennio Morricone music interludes Westerns to the movie theater setting. The colors provided by 35mm films are aesthetically nostalgic for older movie lovers [1]. The audience does not see several fundamental characters at the start and end, making it very easy to draw the “basterds in the basterds” savage fighters to the gruesome behind enemy lines fighting which is a homage to The Dirty Dozen.

And of course, there are three colorful characters who are drawn boldly and yet with love: The Hero, The Nazi, and The Girl. These are the Tarantino’s with Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, and Melanie Laurent, and they're given that Tarantino touch of taking a character and turning them into a Character, distinct, larger than life, flirting with caricature but not quite. Let’s say they feel like the exaggeration of most people we encounter in films.

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The story opens in Nazi-occupied France, at the beginning of the war. It starts with the not-so-funnily cruel Nazi Col. Hans Landa (Waltz), showing up at an isolated dairy farm where he's certain the farmer (Denis Menochet) has a family of Jews that he is hiding somewhere. He is correct, and a young lady goes by the name of Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) runs away to the mountains. It is for this scene, and his performance throughout the movie, that I believe Christoph Waltz deserves an oscar nomination alongside best actor at Cannes. His character is overshadowed by every character I’ve seen in a movie: evil, sardonic, ironic, mannered, absurd is somebody who actually makes sense.

“Basterds” features Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine – the head of the Basterds. Tarantino probably wants us to hear “Aldo Ray,” star of countless war films and B pictures. Pitt gives voice to Raine as an overdone Southern brute who barks orders at his men to the tune of ‘bring me the scalps of 100 Nazis.’ For years, his band improbably survives in France and massacres Nazis, and can turn out in formal eveningwear at a moment’s notice. Pitt’s Italian accent is not half as good as his jokes about Marx brothers.

Laurent paints Shosanna as a flamboyant woman in crimson lipstick and red dress, portraying ‘The Girl.’ Tarantino captures her in fetish-like fascination with peering steady through frames of shoes, lips, veils, and fabric, too. You surely cannot tell me Tarantino was unfamiliar with Jack Vettriano, Scotland’s finest, who painted stunning ladies in red smoking cigarettes and his famous ‘noir’ series.

Shosanna strategically flirts with Frederick Zoller (portrayed by Daniel Bruhl), a Nazi war hero turned movie star; he convinces Joseph Goebbels to premiere his new war film at her theater. This paves the way for a story in which Tarantino manages to provide documentary evidence for how flammable nitrate film prints are by breaking several of the film’s rules.

A Tarantino movie is impossible to categorize. “Inglourious Basterds” is no more a feature about war than “Pulp Fiction” is attempting to deconstruct — what in the world is it? Certainly nothing in the film is possible, apart from the fact that it is captivating because of how absurdly entertaining it is. His actors don't chew the scenery; instead, they lick it. He is amazing at bringing performances as close to iconographic exaggeration as possible.

When I watched ‘Inglourious Basterds’ at the Cannes festival, I was maintaining a daily blog, and for some reason, I chose not to give my opinion. I understood that it was an important piece of cinema by Tarantino, but I really wanted to sit with my thoughts and watch it once more before sharing anything. I’m glad I held off. Just like many great films, I found that the next viewing added to my overall enjoyment. QT asked me my thoughts a few minutes after ‘Pulp Fiction’ screened at Cannes. “I said: It’s either the best or worst film of the year,” I recounted. It was quite the outlandish experience to me. The outcome was: the best film. You learn to appreciate Tarantino movies in a way that morphs your viewpoint over time yet these films are not made for single viewings.