Inglorious Basterds
Sep. 10th, 2009 08:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mollyporterTonight I went to see Inglorious Basterds with my friend R. and WOW.
I liked that movie so much more than I thought I would.
That movie was the most self-indulgent, fantastical, absurd, and somehow glorious movie I have seen in a long time. Brad Pitt's accent, sweet gia. Brad Pitt's Italian accent. Mike Effing Meyers. I mean, even the opening credits had me laughing in incredulity. I think that's the theme of this movie. From the opening credits to the very end, it has you asking "Is Tarantino SERIOUS? What is this?"
The entire second half of the film is spent wondering what is going to go wrong, what is going to prevent these two plots to blow up the theater from going through, how this movie is going to resolve itself when CLEARLY these two groups of renegades don't defeat the third reich by themselves in a single bombing in France. Because we've all had basic history, and that's not how WWII happened. Except then Tarantino decides that no, this movie is SO self-indulgently revisionist that actually, that IS what happens!
The entire film watches like a vengeful fever dream that you can't help but get caught up in. The theatre burning scene is one that you spend most of the film desperately hoping for but fully expecting to be denied. And it is spectacular. There is no mercy in this film, no compromise, no honor. It doesn't need any of those things. This film just makes me want to flail, and gape, and laugh. It is so unapologetically one-sided, filled with so many absurd jokes, clever only in their subtlety (see the recurring failure to actually translate all of the subtitles) - And I just want to take a moment to appreciate the fact that there were at least four languages spoken in the film (by my count: English, French, German, and Italian)
This isn't very coherent. Basically, Inglorious Basterds left me flailing, wanting to see it again, and incredibly satisfied. Which is the last thing I ever expected from this film.
I liked that movie so much more than I thought I would.
That movie was the most self-indulgent, fantastical, absurd, and somehow glorious movie I have seen in a long time. Brad Pitt's accent, sweet gia. Brad Pitt's Italian accent. Mike Effing Meyers. I mean, even the opening credits had me laughing in incredulity. I think that's the theme of this movie. From the opening credits to the very end, it has you asking "Is Tarantino SERIOUS? What is this?"
The entire second half of the film is spent wondering what is going to go wrong, what is going to prevent these two plots to blow up the theater from going through, how this movie is going to resolve itself when CLEARLY these two groups of renegades don't defeat the third reich by themselves in a single bombing in France. Because we've all had basic history, and that's not how WWII happened. Except then Tarantino decides that no, this movie is SO self-indulgently revisionist that actually, that IS what happens!
The entire film watches like a vengeful fever dream that you can't help but get caught up in. The theatre burning scene is one that you spend most of the film desperately hoping for but fully expecting to be denied. And it is spectacular. There is no mercy in this film, no compromise, no honor. It doesn't need any of those things. This film just makes me want to flail, and gape, and laugh. It is so unapologetically one-sided, filled with so many absurd jokes, clever only in their subtlety (see the recurring failure to actually translate all of the subtitles) - And I just want to take a moment to appreciate the fact that there were at least four languages spoken in the film (by my count: English, French, German, and Italian)
This isn't very coherent. Basically, Inglorious Basterds left me flailing, wanting to see it again, and incredibly satisfied. Which is the last thing I ever expected from this film.
