Inglourious Basterds begins in German-occupied France, where Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Shosanna narrowly escapes and flees to Paris, where she forges a new identity as the owner and operator of a cinema. Elsewhere in Europe, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) organizes a group of Jewish soldiers to engage in targeted acts of retribution. Known to their enemy as "The Basterds," Raine's squad joins German actress and undercover agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a mission to take down the leaders of The Third Reich. Fates converge under a cinema marquee, where Shosanna is poised to carry out a revenge plan of her own
Quintin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds follows the usual formula of the films from this audacious and deftly entertaining auteur: Take a particular cinematic genre (here being the war film), drop a lot of references from other genres that have tenuous connections to the primary structure (we get lots of sampling from Spaghetti westerns and French noir), fill in dialogue that rarely alludes to the plot and is usually written too smart for the characters speaking it (this film dollops into a lot of languages and allows its characters to derive insight into other characters' use of language that proves quite telling), and stubbornly sticks to one message to the point that Tarantino seems destructively unapologetic. Here, the focus is revenge. Of the three main characters, enacting is undeterred and the feeling of satisfaction it brings refuses to call into any account of moral doubt. Some may say such an approach is irresponsible or suspicious. For Tarantino affectionados like myself, "Basterds"'s a thrilling tour of an artist's inspirations and an adrenaline shot of lush screenwriting and cringe-inducing gallows humor that amounts to a fantasia of the war film that makes battle more personal than ever. There's three plots that weave through the film that merit equal attention. There's the title story of the Basterds, a group of Jewish soldiers dropped into Nazi-occupied France with the charge of scalping and massacring as much of the Third Reich as possible. This unique fighting squad is led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), a moonshiner from the hills of Tennessee with an unexplained rope burn that encompasses the width of his neck. He speaks in folksy colloquialisms but is most forceful with his actions. While most military men deal with guns, Raine wants his men to deal with knives. And deal with them they do. You never get to know much about the soldiers under his command; about where they came from or how they interact with each other. There's no talk about their feelings on the Holocaust or about the consequences of their mission. All the audience really gets to see is their vengeance-driven blood lust; they are defined by their revenge. On the flip side of the Basterds, a lot of time is spend with Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), a nasty Nazi with the fitting nickname, "the Jew hunter". In what is sure to become a classic opening scene, Landa and his men visit a French dairy farmer accused of hiding a Jewish family. The niceties of his conversation with the farmer masks a nasty, determined crackdown. This scene closely invokes the scene in Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction", where Jules Winfield interrogates a couple of insubordinate business associates. However, here, the history of the moment and the consequences of what Landa is doing wrings through the scene. It is chillingly effective, as is Waltz's entire performance. He is always charming and effective no matter what he is doing. His motives, however, tend to offer some clever surprises. His revenge, and the motives behind it, is best left to discover for yourself. While the Basterds strike fear and terror throughout the Nazi ranks, Landa is always a few steps behind and, in many case, well ahead of their plans. He may not be able to beat the best Nazi put on screen - but it would be hard to beat Ralph Fiennes in "Schindler's List" - but there is something deliciously horrible about Col. Landa. Then, in perhaps the most interesting of the three stories is found with Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent). A Jewish girl who survives Col. Landa's murderous hands, she flees to Paris where, somewhat miraculously, becomes the owner of a cool little movie theater. She catches the attention of a German soldier (Frederick Zoller) and, ultimately, the Nazi leadership who choose her theater as a venue to show off their latest propaganda film, "Nation's Pride." At first reluctant, she decides this will be the perfect opportunity to avenge the loss of her family. It is Dreyfuss where "Basterds" seems to find its soul. Being a theater owner, Tarantino clearly wishes to symbolize (pretty blatantly) the power of film and its ability to wreck havoc upon its audience. Tarantino also unleashes an artisitc flourish unseen in most of his earlier films; the use of color to highlight the character's arc is particularly impressive. More importantly, this young actress captures some very raw emotions in her performance one hopes she heads down the Tarantino heroine path or Uma Thurman and not of Maria de Medeiros.
All of this adds up to a film that wants to celebrate the cliches of the war film by expounding upon those cliches and making them into something very personally revealing. Tarantino has taken the standard WWII story of soldiers and turned it into a film of intimate revenge. Most war films feature heroic soldiers autonomously slaughtering the enemy. Here, the enemy is engaged. There are conversations between predator and prey. The victim talks about themselves. This is consistent among all of the main characters with a similar questions emerging: Is war better when the enemy is unknown and distant rather than known and close-up? If there's any moral or ethical core to Inglorious Basterds, that's it. Tarantino certainly relishes in the art of the war film; in its aesthetic and its scope. But watching war as executed using baseball bats and Bowie knives is certainly a lot more shocking than watching war combated with machine guns and aerial bombs. Ancillary to this is efforts Tarantino makes to connect Raine, Dreyfuss, and Landa with one another. One of the characters asks one of the other how much different they really are; whether geography had more to do with ideology as to what side they landed. While the response is simplistic, the overall message from the film is pretty provocative. Of course, I can also see any point of criticism in that Tarantino has allowed his self-grandstanding narcissism to get the best of him in "Basterds." Setting the fictional massacre of Nazi officials in the Parisian art house theater certainly sets up an argument that cinema and film is more powerful that Nazi-level evil. Or the brief documentary piece that explains the combustible nature of celluloid. Such a literal statement meant to be so figurative it causes eye-rolling. Further, there are proclamations from Pitt's character - looking straight into the camera - that "I may have finally made my masterpiece." Bravado from a filmmaker who can be rightly criticized for borrowing too much from other filmmakers? Perhaps. But being audacious and talented is something I can rightly handle for a film so well-crafted and cleverly constructed. There's also some self-aware showiness - particularly with the narration provided by Samuel L. Jackson that intentionally feels lifted from a whole other film. Yes, this might be there just because Tarantino is indulging some film fantasy. But, for a film that plays loosely enough with history to make its ultimate point, bemoaning such flourishes seems beside the point. Inglourious Basterds can excessive and graphic and pretentious all at once. There will be people who feel it is disrespectful to history and to the challenges and prevails of World War II. To that, I say: You've had YOUR war movies. This is unique and fresh for an American filmmaker and an American audience. Whether you'll love it or hate it, "Basterds" is something to be experienced. This gets a strong 4 on my "Go See" scale.
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