"Django Unchained" caught me by surprise, it's not that I didn't think I was going to enjoy it, after all it's made by Quentin Tarantino who's films I've all enjoyed thoroughly, some I would even call masterpieces. But "Django Unchained" represents something I didn't expect from Tarantino; a harsh critique on slavery. Since the beginning with "Reservoir Dogs", Tarantino has gone out of his way to transcend genre, using it as a means to comment either on character, relationships, or films in general. His trademarks, which we have all gotten used to include, manipulation of time such as "Pulp Fiction" where the film ends as it began, or in "Reservoir Dogs" where we cut from the aftermath of a bank heist to before it actually happened. He would also include chapters in his stories which would usually hint to what will happen next or to introduce a character such as "Kill Bill" or "Inglorious Basterds".
With "Django Unchained", none of the chapters, or time changes are visible, at least from what I observed. This is Tarantino's most direct and linear film, and probably his least complicated and most blunt.
"Django Unchained" follows what Tarantino first started with in the "Kill Bill" movies, by offering up yet another revenge tale. Django (Jaimie Foxx) is a Black slave who is freed one night by a high minded, and sophisticated bounty hunter by the name of Dr. King Schultz. Schultz needs Django to help him find the whereabouts of a murderous gang known as the Brittle Brothers. Django has met them before so he will be helpful in identifying them.
But Django also has other things in mind, we learn that he is married and his wife Brunhilda (Kerry Washington) has been sold off to a Plantation in Mississippi. Schultz takes Django under his wing as a bounty hunter, and the two become partners. After awhile, they set off to find Django's wife who has been bought by Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) and lives on his plantation known as Candy Land, and as expected the usual Tarantino cat and mouse game and eventual carnage will take place as soon as our heroes get there.
All that I have described to you above, probably comes to no surprise to those who know Tarantino's cinephile sensibilities, yet a new depth has been added. This is a slave's revenge tale, and one that Tarantino takes to heart. This is unlike any other film I've seen that has depicted this period before. Tarantino does not shy away from the atrocities that negroes fell victim to at this time, and this causes some of his most disturbing imagery.
At one point in the film, we see a black slave torn to pieces by wild dogs, we also see a line of them in dehumanizing spiked collars and muzzles. Brumhilda herself is subject to torture in a hotbox in Candy Land where she is stripped naked and left locked up to roast in. When she is released, she gets cold water splashed in her face and then tossed in a wheelbarrow. These are disturbing images and something I wasn't expecting from Tarantino.
Now take "Inglorious Basterds", Tarantino's last film which followed the similar tale of vengeance with a group of Jews getting back at the Nazis during the second World War, and in conclusion brought about an early, and historically inaccurate end to it. That film opened to harsh criticism with some claiming it supported Holocaust denial. I didn't really feel that way, after all, what were the Jews getting revenge for if not for the Holocaust? However, after watching "Django Unchained", I would now say "Inglorious Basterds" is the inferior film, and far less daring. "Django Unchained" takes on the subject of slavery in all of its brutality, and ludicrousness, while "Inglorious Basterds", more or less dances around the Holocaust in favor of its cinematic fueled Adventure story.
Now I still like "Inglorious Basterds", but I can't help but re-evaluate it after viewing "Django Unchained", which I see is a more mature work from Tarantino. But perhaps this is a subject with a more personal stake on the man who has given us characters such as Jules Winnfield and Jackie Brown. Tarantino has long been influenced by blaxploitation and black culture. He even once said if he were ever to direct a biopic, it would be on John Brown, who used violent methods to help abolish slavery. I don't know much about Tarantino's upbringing, but I don't think it would be a stretch to say this topic is near and dear to his heart.
But "Django Unchained" is also a superior film structurally as well, and perhaps it is the direct approach that helps with it. It never seems to slow down, and the dialogue plays like music coming out of the actor's mouths, none so much than with Christoph Waltz, who is playing the other side of the coin from his Hanz Landa character in "Inglorious Basterds", and Samuel L. Jackson who is given the juicy role of a nosy house man. Tarantino seems to gravitate towards Waltz and Jackson who are proper subjects for his kind of dialogue.
There are two bloody sequences in Candy Land which dominate the final act and probably top the climax of "Kill Bill Vol.1" as Tarantino's bloodiest set pieces. What's amazing about all of his movies is how he can find new ways to extract blood from all of his victims. In this film, I see Tarantino owing a lot to Sam Peckinpah, and there is even a scene early on where a man is shot off a horse, that for some reason reminded me of Spielberg's "War Horse" just last year, but I digress, it's a whole new game just to identify all the homages the film riffs on.
"Django Unchained" represents the second time this year I've seen a film of such violence elevate itself from the ugliness of its world to become something rather beautiful, the other was "Seven Psychopaths" which is a film that probably wouldn't exist without Tarantino. But "Django Unchained" in my mind represents a great director at his most passionate and angry, it's at the same time an entertaining genre piece and a primal scream at an ugly time in history.
No comments:
Post a Comment