Inglourious Basterds

[Anders]

Thanks to having a friend who's active in the Stockholm fandom scene I got to go to the world premiere (outside Cannes) of Tarantino's new movie, Inglourious Basterds (spelled just like that) and I liked it a lot.

More details tomorrow.

[Anders]

So the movie was good. Somehow, it feels like a more mature movie than Tarantino's others (though I haven't seen Death Proof yet): it's not the crazy genius of Pulp Fiction but the characters, while stylized and often larger-than-life, feel more rounded. There are charged emotions, a few cinematically beautiful shots and some that are just beautiful.

The violent scenes are brutal and short, and though I'm usually quite hardened there were several times when I flinched or looked away - the scalpings are quite shudder-worthy.

Regarding the violence, I can't help but think he's trying to make a point by having scenes where you laugh at German soldiers being killed and then having a scene with Hitler watching a movie and laughing at American soldiers being killed. I'm not sure if it's a deep or meaningful point, but I don't think it's unintentional.

The acting is overall very good. Christoph Waltz (who got a well-deserved best actor award for the role in Cannes) crafts a great villain: affable, brilliant and ruthless. Mélanie Laurent is great as Shosanna, and Daniel Brühl makes a good portrait of a very unlikable character. Brad Pitt is sometimes a bit too one-note, but it didn't ruin anything for me.

The languages are done very well. There's a mix of German, French, English and a little Italian, used very naturally. (In the first scene there's a point where it seems they're making an overtly construed switch to English, but it turns out to make sense.)

I can't say much about the story without giving it away, other than that it's neatly fitted together without any obvious loose ends that I can think of.

Several of the scenes are heavily loaded with tension dragged out until you almost can't stand it, all in a good way.

In a way, I think this movie is a sign that WWII is moving more into the realm of fiction than reality. In another generation or so there will be nobody alive who was even born when it happened (barring miraculous advances in medicine) and once we get there the direct connection to the actual events will be broken in a way. Hitler will become another Napoleon or Caesar: someone who existed and had a huge impact on history but has been fictionalized to the point of caricature.

[K-Box]

Jul 21, 2009 3:52:34 GMT -8 Anders said:

[...] WWII is moving more into the realm of fiction than reality. In another generation or so there will be nobody alive who was even born when it happened (barring miraculous advances in medicine) and once we get there the direct connection to the actual events will be broken in a way. Hitler will become another Napoleon or Caesar: someone who existed and had a huge impact on history but has been fictionalized to the point of caricature.

This is a tragically accurate observation, since around here, the WWII vets all seem to be dying off at once. Two years ago, our local Fourth of July parade had the entire back bed of a farming pickup truck filled with seated WWII vets, waving to the cheering crowds. This year, it was a single car, filled with maybe four or five folks, including the driver. It's not just that they're dying off (as one would expect), but that their deaths are happening in such a clearly delineated paradigm shift. I have one surviving grandparent, and I worry about my dad when his mom dies.

[Anders]

It's not as clear here (what with there being no proper veterans and no military parades of any kind) but my dad was in the military (army or coastal artillery, I'm not sure which) during the war and he's 86 this year.