I'm a little late in joining the fun of the critical reception for "Inglorious Basterds", but I've had a hell of a time reading what there is about it. It's great seeing a film inspire such debate in a critical community. "Inglorous Basterds" is the kind of film you can't have no feelings for, because it is designed to grab your attention.
Some have called it an outrageous revenge fantasy, others have called it an exercise in style stripped of all emotion, while others accuse it of Holocaust denial.
For me I felt I had to see it again a second time, it's the kind of film that warrants it. I didn't fully enjoy my first viewing of "Inglorious Basterds", perhaps I was loooking at it a little too critical. I felt the chapters didn't hold together as well as I would've liked them, although Tarantino achieved some of his best individual scenes in these movies. I also thought the narration by Samuel L. Jackson felt out of place and took me out of the movie, and the final scene with Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine and Christoph Waltz's Hans Landa didn't ring true. I was entertained by it as a whole, and didn't think of Tarantino's rewriting history to be nothing more than fun fantasy fulfillment. Overall though the film left me underwhelmed, I was expecting a lot more from Tarantino. However I still had the nagging feeling inside me, which caused me to suspend judgement until the second viewing because knowing Tarantino he would've filled his film with things I perhaps missed the first time.
Now after having just come from my second screening, I can now say that Tarantino has created a near pulp masterpiece perhaps second only behind his "Kill Bill" films. This time I felt the chapters did hold together well as a whole rather than just individual pieces. I enjoyed the elaborate set pieces, that Tarantino does better than most anyone, using long bits of dialogue underscoring the intensity of every scene. I appreciated some performances more the second time around as well. Much has been said of Waltz's Hans Landa: "The Jew Hunter" and indeed he is charming and sinister, but I also appreciated Pitt's broad comic turn as the hero Aldo Raine. Like he showed last year in The Coen Brothers' "Burn After Reading", Pitt has a flare for comedy, and I truly hope he decides to take more roles of this nature.
Another thing I love about Raine is how he is the kind of hero people want in a movie, he's smart, he's funny, he's merciless to his enemies, and he does exactly what we want him to do. This comes to no surprise, Tarantino excells in delivering to the audience what we want to see.
Another performance I admired is Michael Fassbender's stiff upper lipped British officer Archie Hilcox. Again like Raine, Hilcox is the kind of hero who reacts the way we want him to, he always plays it cool even when he is literally under the gun.
Tarantino's own flare for dialogue has become even more tightly gripped and in control. He doesn't let his characters riff on things on and on as he did rather a little too much in "Reservoir Dogs" and parts of "Pulp Fiction". Tarantino is now an assured director more confident than ever before. The joy of Tarantino is in his delivery, he understands what film is and what it can do, and we delight in his playfulness.
I don't think "Inglorious Basterds" is the kind of film to take seriously, it is a revenge fantasy, and if anything it's a love letter to cinema. The climax takes place in a movie theatre with an ending that can only happen in a movie. It's a testament to Tarantino's belief in what film can do particularly in the movie's most poignant scene. The film's heroine Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) is in the projection booth about to unleash her masterplan when she is interrupted by the German war hero Fredrik Zoller (Daniel Bruhl) who is the star of the propaganda film being shown. After a romantic entanglement that goes awry, Shosanna shoots Zoller, but after looking at his face on the screen, her face changes. What does she feel for him? Is it empathy? Is is sadness? Whatever it is and perhaps forgetting for a moment what Zoller represents, she kneels down beside his dying body, thus sealing her fate. For Tarantino, it is film itself that has the power to move us in unexpected ways.
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