Movie Review "Inglorius Basterds"

THAT TARANTINO BASTERD IS GLORIUS

INGLORIUS BASTERD

*Brad Pitt, Christopher Waltz, Diane Kruger, Mélanie Laurent etc

First Things First.

Do NOT watch this movie if:

a) You are expecting a lot of action.
b) You don’t like long winded conversations.
c) You don’t like reading sub titles.
d) You are expecting a ‘Schlindlers List’…. and last but most importantly,
e) You think Mr. Pitt will be the ‘hero’ and all over the movie.

But if you like movies with intelligent conversation, then this will probably be one of the most fulfilling movies you’ll watch this year.

“Once upon a time in Nazi occupied France…” it begins and you will be smart to take the “Once Upon A Time” very seriously.

In the very first scene (which is worthy of every Hitchcock movie ever) the movie opens with a panoramic view of Nazi occupied French farmland with a farmer and his three daughters. Then the Nazis show up, led by Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz in a Cannes Best Actor winning and an almost certain Oscar nomination performance). The action then shifts indoors to the farmers house where the charming colonel puts the farmer through the most smooth yet most scary interrogation ever filmed.

Infact the scene goes on and on (almost 15 min i think) and is filled with common chitchat, in multiple languages all merging seamlessly, and all of it camouflaging a decidedly sinister goal.

I once had a watch repaired in one of the old fashioned watch repair shops (Maya Watch House in Darjeeling) and as the old gent opened the back of my watch what I saw was a complex web of machinery all coiled so tightly and so high strung that a single wrong tap or touch would make it all fly off like crazy.

That first scene is like that watch and the best part is that it is all achieved with dialogue alone.

Infact that scene alone is worth the price of your ticket.

Most of "Inglourius Basterds" tells the story of Shosanna, a young French Jewish woman who witnesses the slaughter of her family by the Colonel and escapes to Paris, where she somehow becomes the owner of a local cinema and gets a Nazi ‘admirer’.

Because Shosanna is in hiding and under a pseudonym she does not get scenes where she can let rip at the Germans but in French actress Mélanie Laurent's remarkable performance, you can always see the emotions beneath the faked composure - terror, anger, sadness, rage, shame – all simmering like a dormant volcano. Again like that tight watch.

And in stunning scene later, when (of all things) she’s applying her make-up, her wrath shows through clearly. Priceless!

Infact almost all of the scenes are priceless including one in a basement bar that plays like a lethal game of poker where the climax is lost on 3 fingers (watch the movie and you will not only understand but will also always remember whenever you order drinks for yourself and your 2 friends)

The story is just an excuse to write great scenes and get great performances in what is quite possibly more of a European film than a Hollywood one. Two thirds of the film is in sub-titles and the characters speak English, German, French and even some truely hilarious Italian.

Infact in another priceless scene 1 character is speaking in German, the second is translating it to French, the third is understanding and replying in French while the second trnslates it back to the first in German. Its like fast paced verbal tango.

Of course it stars Brad Pitt who plays Aldo Raine with his lower jaw permanently thrust out and with an exaggerated hillbilly accent whose main mission is to strike fear in the hearts of Nazi (which he pronounces ‘nat-see’) by scalping the Nazis (which again is shown in typcal Tarantino grisly detail)

Brad Pitt is definitely good, but the scene-stealer here is Waltz as the charmingly despicable Col. Landa, a villain so clever, intelligent and underhanded that he turns World War II into a personal racket.

He delivers his dialogues in four languages (all of the ones mentioned above) and is fascinating to watch –smooth like the cream he orders at a restaurant but one that can curdle just as quickly. Infact his is almost a comical performance save for 2 scenes - one when he orders milk for a character in a restaurant and the other when he asks an actress to put her foot on his leg for a terrifying shoe fitting.

Diane Kruger as the double crossing German actress gets a role that most actresses would kill for and which makes you forgive her for her previous collaboration with Brad Pitt (Troy).

The movie is crazy fun but never boring and always glorious and when David Bowie begins singing "Cat People" on the soundtrack in the spectacular climax where the 'newly dead' speak to the ones 'about to die' from the movie-within-the-movie, you know this is not your average war movie.

But then Tarantino isn’t your average guy.

Oh No Sir ji.

He is a Basterd. A Glorious Basterd

Enjoy.

Vish