Inglorious Basterds
I love movies which explore alternate realities. Which is why I thoroughly enjoyed films like 'Watchmen' and 'Forrest Gump'. The experience of watching what might have been is refreshing.
Isn't that what movies are supposed to be about anyways ?
Back in 1903, it was enough for an actor dressed as a robber to fire into the camera and at the audience to become the talk of the town. It takes a whole lot more to excite audiences today. Surprisingly, the answer to that one still is, and will always remain - a great story with strong characters.
Which brings me to the subject of 'Inglorious Basterds'. The film is quite easily one of the best films of the last decade, and the principal character SS Colonel Hans Landa is right up there in the list of top 10 movie villains of all time.
Although all the movie's posters show Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine as the 'hero' of the film, viewers may be mislead into believing that he is the protagonist. Quite untrue. The smooth talking polyglot and self styled detective Hans Landa takes center stage in this film. In style.
The eponymous 'Basterds' are a group of American Jewish soldiers out on a mission to destroy - read 'kill' - as many Nazis as they can. They are led by the most American man one can imagine - Lt. Aldo Raine, who speaks as though he stepped out of an audition for the local chapter of the rednecks.
As in all Tarantino films, this film has multiple story lines which converge. Here, we meet the seemingly frail Shosanna Dreyfuss - a French Jew who witnesses her family being massacred by the Nazis. At the time of the Basterds' exploits, she runs a cinema in Paris, which is earmarked as the venue for the premiere of a Nazi propaganda film to be attended by the entire Nazi high command including Hitler, Goebbels, Goering and Bormann. Unknown to each other, the Basterds and Shosanna plot independently to get rid of the entire Nazi establishment in one night.
The film pays homage to many westerns and war movies, of which one scene that stood out for me was a homage to 'Guns of Navarone'. The cinematography is excellent; the use of bright colors keeps the audience from moving away from the 'suspension of disbelief' mode that Tarantino creates so well.
The strongest thing the film has going for it are the performances. Every single character is as well etched out as can be. Even though everyone plays a caricature of sorts, the depth and wit in the dialogs prevents this movie from becoming a spoof of itself. And towering over the characters is Colonel Landa, played brilliantly by an Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, none of whose earlier works I had watched. His portrayal of Landa is simply genius - an addition to the list of characters in cinema that overshadow actors who played them. Like Vito Corleone, Randall McMurphy, Charles Foster Kane or The Joker. An inspired performance.
The movie ends with Brad Pitt speaking into the camera and echoing, what is most likely, Tarantino's message to the audience when he says, 'This has got to be my masterpiece'.
Isn't that what movies are supposed to be about anyways ?
Back in 1903, it was enough for an actor dressed as a robber to fire into the camera and at the audience to become the talk of the town. It takes a whole lot more to excite audiences today. Surprisingly, the answer to that one still is, and will always remain - a great story with strong characters.
Which brings me to the subject of 'Inglorious Basterds'. The film is quite easily one of the best films of the last decade, and the principal character SS Colonel Hans Landa is right up there in the list of top 10 movie villains of all time.
Although all the movie's posters show Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine as the 'hero' of the film, viewers may be mislead into believing that he is the protagonist. Quite untrue. The smooth talking polyglot and self styled detective Hans Landa takes center stage in this film. In style.
The eponymous 'Basterds' are a group of American Jewish soldiers out on a mission to destroy - read 'kill' - as many Nazis as they can. They are led by the most American man one can imagine - Lt. Aldo Raine, who speaks as though he stepped out of an audition for the local chapter of the rednecks.
As in all Tarantino films, this film has multiple story lines which converge. Here, we meet the seemingly frail Shosanna Dreyfuss - a French Jew who witnesses her family being massacred by the Nazis. At the time of the Basterds' exploits, she runs a cinema in Paris, which is earmarked as the venue for the premiere of a Nazi propaganda film to be attended by the entire Nazi high command including Hitler, Goebbels, Goering and Bormann. Unknown to each other, the Basterds and Shosanna plot independently to get rid of the entire Nazi establishment in one night.
The film pays homage to many westerns and war movies, of which one scene that stood out for me was a homage to 'Guns of Navarone'. The cinematography is excellent; the use of bright colors keeps the audience from moving away from the 'suspension of disbelief' mode that Tarantino creates so well.
The strongest thing the film has going for it are the performances. Every single character is as well etched out as can be. Even though everyone plays a caricature of sorts, the depth and wit in the dialogs prevents this movie from becoming a spoof of itself. And towering over the characters is Colonel Landa, played brilliantly by an Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, none of whose earlier works I had watched. His portrayal of Landa is simply genius - an addition to the list of characters in cinema that overshadow actors who played them. Like Vito Corleone, Randall McMurphy, Charles Foster Kane or The Joker. An inspired performance.
The movie ends with Brad Pitt speaking into the camera and echoing, what is most likely, Tarantino's message to the audience when he says, 'This has got to be my masterpiece'.
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