But usually, the more popular films based on WW2 use the war as a backdrop, allowing focus on a fictional story without having to alter the actual events of the conflict ("Saving Private Ryan", "Kelly's Heroes", and "The Guns of Navarone" come to mind). But bad-boy filmmaker Quentin Tarantino would most definitely ask in turn, "Where's the fun in that?" Of course, Tarantino has always been known to be highly unorthodox in his filmmaking methods, and as his previous projects have shown us, there's most certainly a method to his madness.
A self-professed compendium of film knowledge and trivia, it wouldn't be too unfair to label Tarantino as self-indulgent and arrogant. After all, his films were more about sharing his love for cinema rather than sticking to contemporary, largely formulaic filmmaking that we "want". As such, his movies bucked the trends, earning him the well-deserved title of a postmodern filmmaker, what with his chronologically skewed storytelling, otherworldly dialogue, tributes to various films and genres, and his comic aestheticization of violence. And with his seventh theatrical release, "Inglourious Basterds" proves, once again, that Tarantino is a mad genius, indeed.
A project over a decade in the works, "Basterds" is, without a doubt, QT's magnum opus, a brilliant, exhilarating, and feverish homage to all things cinema. It's a perfectly-meshed combination of terrific dialogue, an engaging story, and a marvelous cast. Like "Kill Bill" and "Pulp Fiction" before it, "Basterds" is split into chapters, and when the first chapter's title, "Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France", appears onscreen, we know we're privy to Tarantino's undeniable film fetish.
The story is simple: a band of mostly Jewish-American soldiers brutally dispatch Nazis in WW2-era France, all as a teenaged Jewish girl plots to single-handedly destroy the Third Reich. And amongst Tarantino's masterstrokes was a triumph of casting: for starters, as the gruff hillbilly who leads the titular Basterds, Brad Pitt is an absolute hoot. Despite his detractors' assertions to the contrary, Pitt is actually a very talented actor, and here, his comedic chops are put to great use (especially after his riotous turn in last year's "Burn After Reading"). An intentionally cartoonish character with a good ol' boy drawl and a penchant for Nazi mutilation, Pitt's Lt. Raine is a blast to watch in every scene he appears (and you haven't lived until you hear his character attempt to speak Italian).
But despite his top billing, Pitt and his Basterds actually don't show up in the film as much as one would think. In fact, the film's major focuses are on two superbly-written characters. French actress Melanie Laurent plays Shoshana, a French-Jewish teenager who plots vengeance against the Nazis for the murder of her family. The latest in a long line of strong female characters created by Tarantino, Shoshana puts the "fatale" in "femme fatale", and Laurent delivers a marvelous and emotional performance.
But the true revelation and best element of this epic is Christoph Waltz as SS Colonel Hans Landa, the "Jew Hunter". It's rare to find a film villain who can seem pleasant and friendly, but also, at the same time, sinister and downright terrifying (Waltz is a definite lock for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod, if not an Oscar win). Every scene in which Landa appears is harrowingly suspenseful, including right at the beginning, where Landa interrogates a French farmer who's hiding a Jewish family underneath the floors. The 10-plus minute scene is unbearably tense, all as Landa's seemingly pleasant facade belies his actual menace, which can be said for pretty much every appearance he makes (in four different languages, no less!).
Indeed, this is easily Tarantino's most intense film yet, further personified by a second-act sequence featuring a British spy (played by Michael Fassbender) working undercover as an SS officer, meeting with a German movie star-turned-double agent working for the Allies (the lovely Diane Kruger channeling Greta Garbo) in a tavern filled with Nazis. The tension is so thick, you can cut it with a knife. But despite the intensity, Tarantino still manages to have a lot of fun here. A veteran film lover can easily pick out the countless homages QT throws in, from the '60s-era title cards and music cues common in that time period's cheesy action films, heavily stylized violence best known from the films of Leone and Peckinpah, and a soundtrack rife with music by the likes of Ennio Morricone and Charles Bernstein, amongst others. Hell, Tarantino even manages to slip in David Bowie's 1982 hit "Cat People", and despite being anachronistic for a WW2 period piece, it works perfectly here.
By the third act, all of the parallel storylines converge, culminating in an orgy of explosions, gunfire, and an ultimate revenge fantasy that defies historical fact (in fact, to call the ending a "climax" would be a gross understatement; it's a goddamn ORGASM).
"Inglourious Basterds" is certainly the defining point in Quentin Tarantino's career. Superbly written, masterfully directed, hysterically funny, beautifully shot (thanks to cinematographer Robert Richardson), relentlessly intense, unapologetically brutal, and incredibly profound in terms of its love for movie history, "Basterds" is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. At the film's very end, a protagonist looks directly at the audience, and states that "this just might be my masterpiece". It's clear that this character is standing in for Tarantino when he says that. And by God, the Basterd's right on the money.
LETTER GRADE: "A"
