Basterds

I've been meaning to write a review of Quentin Tarantino's latest, but don't expect a lack of spoilers. Go see the movie and come back. You won't regret it.





It was perfect. It was certainly the best movie in the last ten years (since Fight Club, obviously, exactly). A crowded theater, midnight showing, everyone cheered and groaned perfectly.
But it was awful. Awful in the literal sense, full of awe and full of what's terrible.
There are five chapters, each one built upon a beautiful scene of dialogue ending in revolting violence. Tarantino has a real muscle for language, any language, French, German, Italian, especially English. Every dripping word is spectacular, every verb builds up tension like a game of Jenga using the Sears Tower. And then it explodes. It explodes in the most horrifying, beautiful, awesome, awful way possible.

There is more symbolism than I probably caught, but it spoke deeply of the nature of man. First, the trivial, how Bridget von Hammersmark gave a gift to Wilhelm's son, a napkin, yet it ended up being the death of his father.
How, Shosanna Dreyfus, in the scene of her death, became the "Woman in the Red Dress" quite literally by betraying Fredrick Zoller.
The milk.
The meta-ness of the theater burning (for a moment, I thought Harkins was actually aflame and I should bolt for the nearest exit).
The propaganda film that twists Zoller's facts, likewise Tarantino shamelessly twists the facts of World War II, making himself the propagandist.

This alone, Tarantino has created a film that people will use a yardstick for the future of cinema. That's no small feat.

Yet, there's a moral cavity here. The greatest irony in the film is that the Jews become Nazis. They get revenge and mercilessly destroy human life, as judge, jury, executioner. It doesn't have to be right, I'm not asking for anyone to be kind, but there's something darkly eerie when a room of 300 people are applauding these sickening acts.

Does that mean we are softened? Will we be easier to draft, to be flown across the sea to kill others? What will historians think when they view our film history and discover we never had any true heroes. The protagonists in most popular films of this past decade (too many to list!) have no clean-cut morals. I prefer this, but is it right?

The whole thing, an audience clapping when a head is scalped, seems inhumane, but it instantly reminds one of the scene in Chapter Five of Hitler chuckling as Zoller executes American soldiers. I don't think Tarantino is making any solid moral statements here, but you're not exactly supposed to desire them from the man. But calling out violence in film is like spoiling fun or guilt-tripping people for nothing. Party pooper. But I'm not calling it out. I too, am not making any foundational argument here. Just noting.

On the other hand, the movie doesn't only act as a twisted revenge film; it acts as an anti-grace film. Any character that shows mercy instantly goes to Hell, such as Dreyfus pulling up the bleeding body of Zoller, such as the French dairy farmer, such as Landa who gets his skull carved into. Even Landa's murdering of Hammersmark was unneccessary, since he had already planned to betray his country at that point.

But maybe it's just war, then. Maybe there are no excuses.

In the end, adding this whole thing together, it's either the most sickening reflection of inner humanity, like shining a light down the filthy orifice to see how far it reaches. Or maybe it's the most beautiful image of depravity. I like to think it's both.