I was disappointed by Mr.Tarantino ever since death proof. But I insist it was only a little, because I can appreciate the amount of work in producing such an homage to stunts feternity. Inglorious Baste*ds has definitely propelled Tarantino to the top ranks in my universe. This movie can be summed up in one word: "RAW".
There is an intense emotion in every scene. Revenge and justice seem to be the main themes, from the start of the movie one feels compassion towards the victims of the Nazis, and is placed in Tarantino’s fictional dimension of the World War II historical context.
Characters are unpredictable, fun, scary, brutal, sexy, and other adjectives I am sure are escaping my mind that are just as fitting and positive. I won’t go in to an appreciation of each character, but the other comments by fellow users sum up the appreciation of the various performances.
Inglorious Basteds is a dark and violent comic fantasy, gloriously so. Built on the framework of The Dirty Dozen, Inglorious Basteds ditches the elongated training sequences of The Dirty Dozen to plunge into the action right away. In the process, Tarantino fixes one of The Dirty Dozen’s major flaws by giving the bad guys screen time to remind us just how bad the Nazis were. The Nazis with the most screen time end up becoming the most completely human characters in the film, which ironically makes them even worse monsters.
Bu ditching the training sequences, Tarantino is also able to give us a picture of the entire war, showing us not only British, American and German soldiers, but also giving us glimpses into the world of French and German civilians, both collaborators and Resistance.
It goes without saying that any Tarantino film is going to have fantastic dialogue, but when Tarantino made the decision to have the French characters speak French and the Germans speak German, beyond adding a level of authenticity, Tarantino also somehow ensured that his dialogue in French was as sharp and funny and clever as his English dialogue.
Case in point, during the opening sequence the Nazi "Jew Hunter" SS Colonel Hans Landa(Christian Waltz) is interrogating French dairy farmer Perrier LaPadite(Denis Menochet). Landa suspects that LaPadite is hiding a family of Jews. While subtly pressuring LaPadite, Landa asks for a glass of milk. After greedily gulping it down, Landa compliments LaPadite on his daughters and his cows, "à votre famille et à vos vaches, je dis bravo." The thing of it is, in French "vache" means cow, but it is also a vulgar name for the vag*na. If reprimanded for this vulgar pun, Landa could quite convincingly claim not to understand French well enough to have meant it that way, but Landa does mean it that way and he means it as a threat. And LaPadite understands his meaning all too well.
That is a really subtle piece of acting and word-play that many audiences would never catch, or at least they might understand the subtext without knowing the exact nature of the threat. The film is rich with that kind of detail. All of the French and English dialogue is chosen with that same attention to detail and while I can’t swear to the German, I would suspect that it shows a similar level of craft.
Inglorious Basteds opens with the phrase, "Once Upon a Time. in Nazi-Occupied France." Personally, this reminds me of the opening of every Asterix book and movie, another comic fantasy in a war-torn occupied France. Like Asterix, Inglorious Basteds is howlingly funny in places, although the film also turns darkly serious.
Every member of the cast gets the fun to be had from what they are doing while not indulging themselves in just having fun and trying to get laughs helps tremendously. The laughs - and there are loads - come organically. Only Mike Myers comes close to tipping the wink and pushing it too far but his scene is reigned in just enough - with the help of a fantastic Michael Fassbender who seems pulled directly from the mold of Attenborough’s Great Escape leader.
All the actors shine and Tarantino throws in wonderful flourishes, but ones that work with the story. The introduction of Schweiger’s Hugo Stiglitz is a riot. After a sensational slow-burn opening and a glorious intro to those inglourious Baste*ds the pace never lets up and over two and half hours flies by.
In its more serious moments, Inglorious Baste*ds reminds us that the first casualties of war are compassion and the ability to relax, as in almost every elongated sequence of the film, Tarantino finds a new way to build cruel tension to almost unbearable levels.
Tarantino also reminds us that film is dangerous, even inflammable and that its power deserves respect.
The visuals/photography are beautiful, with sceneries convincingly conveying a 1940s World War II Europe. The outfits are perfect, and the violence orgasmically/realistically conveyed. No punches are held back, and the Nazis are often shown being tortured. This makes the movie not open to all audiences, the graphic violence can shock the more sensitive demographic.
Volumes can be written about this movie. But the movie is so good, that during the mumbai Inglorious Baste*ds premiere at Fame Andheri, I had to pee, but refused to go so as to not miss one single scene. I hope that image conveys how strongly I feel about this movie, and I’m a hard audience to please.
If you can see this film as I did in a packed theatre filled with knowledgeable fans who get every joke, that you will see this masterful film the way that it was meant to be seen. If you are not that lucky, all that you will see is a great, great film that delivers a darkly funny punch.