Peaks and Valleys
posted on Wednesday, November 04, 2009 in Movie Reviews
Inglourious Basterds is about as pure as a Tarantino movie gets. Tarantino’s films have always been a collection of homages, paying tribute to some obscure genre of film from the eras of cinema that the director grew up with. This film takes things a step further, completely fracturing the narrative in service of providing a framework to fit in all of his tributes. The result is a little uneven, but more often than not, frighteningly entertaining. In Nazi-occupied France, the brilliant German officer Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) has been given the nickname “the Jew Hunter” for his exemplary skill at finding and eliminating Jewish people in hiding. Meanwhile, a squad of Jewish-American soldier led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) has entered Nazi territory with the singular intention of striking fear into the hearts of Germans through sheer brutality, earning them the nickname “the Bastards.” Years into the war, these legends of battle intersect at a small cinema in Paris set to hold the premiere of a new film produced by Goebbels. With the fuehrer and all of his top advisers in attendance, the premiere presents a unique chance for the bastards to end the war. But Landa’s heading security for the premiere, and will prove to be a worthy adversary.
The film is Tarantino in his purest form, playing out more as an anthology of his influences. The five-act structure of the film is indicative of the approach, less concerned with the nuts and bolts of narrative storytelling, and more focused on delivering explosive scenes plastered with his signature dialogue. Tarantino barely connects his fragmented narrative at all, using the momentum of his dialogue and the weight of his characters to keep the movie together. Like any anthology, some parts are stronger than the others. A middle section detailing the exploits of the Bastards gets a little tiresome, the characters preempting the surprise punch of the violence by talking its victim to death first. On the other hand, the opening segment featuring Landa charmingly defeating a French dairy farmer is as good as cinema gets, with Tarantino clearly tightening the reins on his storytelling.
Not to say that any of it is particularly bad, of course. Even a bad Tarantino scene offers a lot more to take in than your average Hollywood film. But the disparity in the quality of the scenes can make for uneven viewing. What stays constant, however, is the strength of the filmmaking. The movie is like a tour through the history of the war movie, little tributes to film classics seeping their way through every shot. What’s clear in the film is the director’s love for cinema, its ability to be intimate and grand, romantic and terrible. The enthusiasm for everything being shot can be infectious, and film lovers of all stripes will find much to enjoy.
The single greatest thing about this movie, though, is German actor Christoph Waltz. Waltz’s performance alone may be enough reason to recommend the film. He plays Hans Landa, a thoroughly amoral man who takes great pleasure in his job, which entails hunting down Jewish survivors. By all accounts, we should hate him, but Waltz plays his character with a ridiculous amount of charm, creating a character that seamlessly alternates between paralyzing fear and satisfying delight. Next to Waltz, Brad Pitt seems miniscule, though Pitt has many tricks of his own. The acting in general is pretty good, with strong performances from Melanie Laurent, Daniel Bruhl and Michael Fassbender. The weak link is director Eli Roth, who hams it up in every scene he’s in.
The viewing experience of Inglourious Basterds is a story of peaks and valleys, the fractured narrative making it easy to take each part of the film separately, with some parts obviously weaker than others. But even the rougher patches of valley aren’t even that low, with great filmmaking and even greater performances providing ample lift to the lowlands. Meanwhile, the peaks of the film stay gloriously, untouchably high.
My Rating:
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