Film Guide

A graphic and darkly comic ride, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds firmly thrusts the cinephilic director extraordinaire back into the limelight. Imbued with his characteristic stylish and stylised stamp this alternate universe WW2 adventure boasts the abundance of flinch-worthy gore, low slung camera angles, clever dialogue, unique cameos, and loving references to all things pulp cinema that you’d expect of a classic Tarantino outing.

A special insurgency unit of Jewish Americans is formed – who become known as the Inglorious Basterds – and are dropped into pre D Day occupied France to carry out brutal attacks on Nazi soldiers with a mission to demoralise and sow fear amidst the ranks of the Reich. Skip ahead some and the Basterds are now an infamous crew who have each earned nicknames amongst the occupying German army and who have caught the notice of the Fuhrer himself – highlighted in an amusing tantrum-like outburst scene. Pulp Fiction like their storyline entwines with one of young French-Jew Shosanna Dreyfus (a stunning Mélanie Laurent) the lone survivor of a family viciously killed by Colonel Hans Landa (pitch perfectly polite-but-creepy Christoph Waltz) a multilingual SS officer tasked with ferreting out Jews in hiding and enjoying it just a little too much. The fourth and fifth ‘scenes’ of the film centre on “Operation Kino” a plot to blow up the Paris cinema run by Shosanna which is to host a screening of Joseph Goebbels’ (a slightly camp Sylvester Groth) new propaganda film Nation’s Pride – a ‘biopic’ about German sniper war hero Pte Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl). Of course, as you’d expect with a QT film things don’t go to plan and the storylines interweave with often funny results. 

And yet in some ways this is not a classic Tarantino film. For one: the choice of lead actor is somewhat uncharacteristic. QT usually opts for character leads with a bit more of a gruff cinematic history, the likes of John Travolta or Kurt Russell. A-lister Brad Pitt was an interesting selection of the role of Lt. Aldo Raine leader of the titular ‘Basterds’. To be sure Pitt fills the role with his typical onscreen presence and characteristic mix of comic confidence (Ocean’s franchise) and raw wildness (Fight Club). But I think Tarantino goes further and purposefully plays off his lead’s known foibles. In a Total Film interview I read some years ago Pitt admitted his obvious lack of talent for accents (see him attempting an Austrian accent Seven Years in Tibet for an extreme example) and so Tarantino has him playing a Tennessee mountain man with an overtly broad accent – who isn’t very good at accents but, in one of Basterds funniest scenes, has to pretend to be an Italian actor to complete a mission. Also used in an interesting way is German actor Daniel Brühl acting as the incredibly clean-cut cinema loving Nazi war hero, where in the past he has played several non-conformist, anti-establishment characters (The Edukators, 2 Days in Paris). It is Waltz though who steals the show as the well mannered and mostly reasonable sociopath Col. Landa – well deserving of the Cannes best actor gong he received earlier in the year.

Tarantino gives nods to Enzo G. Castellari’ original Italian film The Inglorious Bastards more by including its director in a small cameo role than by following its plot outline, as well as by bathing Basterds’ soundtrack in Ennio Morricone pieces (famous spaghetti western scorer who had also worked with Castellari in a project in the 70s) recognisable right from the get go. Assorted filmic references abound – too many for all but the most cine-literate to notice – and Tarantino takes the opportunity to directly use plot and character construction to talk film history. This is evidenced in a plotline involving the screening of a WWII German propaganda film, and main characters being cinema proprietors, famous actresses (Diane Kruger as actress turned British spy Bridget von Hammersmark), and film critics specialising in German cinema of the 20s-30s (Michael Fassbender as British scotch swilling toff, Lt. Archie Hicox). Even the names of the various characters reflect actors, films and directors from Tarantino’s compendium of influences such as Aldo Raine whose character name is in tribute to American actor Aldo Ray star of several old Hollywood war films.

Visually Basterds is as rich as any film in the Tarantino oeuvre utilising some of the dusty long shots reminiscent of spaghetti westerns, classic low shots on lead protagonists, and some truly inspired close-ups. In one scene where Shosanna is afraid that she is about to be arrested by a suspicious Col. Landa, Tarantino gets the camera right up on a bowl of whipped cream being scooped onto some strudel Landa has ordered for them both and manages to make this a truly tense creepy experience to the point where you’re wondering whether the dish is poisoned. Watching this film reminded me of one of the attributes that separates Tarantino from other action/adventure type directors: he is not afraid to give scenes and shots adequate space. Nothing in the film seems rushed, on the contrary some shots seem positively poetic, and yet it is a truly visceral piece of cinema that will see those with delicate constitutions burying faces in arms. After the mad rush of recent productions (Star Wars, Transformers) this visually meditative aspect in a genre film is somewhat refreshing. Basterds may lack some of the polished cool of Reservoir Dogs and doesn’t reach the heights of dialogue found in Pulp Fiction but is an entertaining and intriguing film in its own right and one worthy of more than just a single viewing; a lovingly realised work from one of the more compelling filmmakers of the current generation.





Reviewed by: Jacob Powell
Rating: [16] Contains violence and offensive language
Release date: December 17th, 2009
Stars: Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Til Schweiger, M’lanie Laurent, Daniel Br’hl, Gedeon Burkhard, Jacky Ido, B.J. Novak, Omar Doom, August Diehl, Denis Menochet, Sylvester Groth, Mike Myers, Julie Dreyfus, Samuel L. Jackson
Length (Minutes): 164
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1
Languages: English
Supported Audio: Dolby Digital Surround 5.1
Director: Tarantino, Quentin
Studio: Universal Pictures