Like all good fairy tales, this one begins with "Once upon a time . . .," but this is no ordinary fairy tale. This is Quentin Tarantino's bloody version of a fairy tale and centres around an audacious plan to assassinate Hitler. Instead of a princess we have a Jewish girl, Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent), hell bent on avenging the murder of her family at the hands of the Nazis. And, although there's no romance involved, the princely role belongs to Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), a hick American soldier who gained his nickname of Aldo the Apache by heading a troop of Nazi-hunting Inglourious Basterds who scalp their victims. The baddie of the story is a sadistic and shrewd S.S. Colonel, Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), known as the Jew Hunter. The one traditional element it shares with a fairy tale is a happy ending. But this is no Disney happy ending.
For Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds is arguably his best work since Pulp Fiction. A bravura bit of filmmaking, it features the elements the director has established his reputation on. It's brutally violent, disquietingly tense and hilariously funny, all set to a rousing soundtrack. It's the work of an assured and courageous writer and director. Dealing with a fantasy of this nature requires confidence, succeeding requires skill. Both are traits that Tarantino has in abundance. That and an uncanny gift for casting. In the hitherto little known Waltz, Tarantino has unearthed a huge talent. His brilliant portrayal of Landa gives the film its sinister undercurrent, one that enables the film's more whimsical and melodramatic moments to succeed.
Divided into chapters, Inglourious Basterds is effectively a series of gripping vignettes that start out sedately and light then slowly get darker and darker and more frantic before exploding in a violent finale. Tarantino is a master of dialogue and the wordplay within the scenes as they twist one way and then another, make them riveting and unpredictable.
The films opens in Nazi-occupied France in 1941with the arrival of Landa at a rural farm suspected of secretly housing a Jewish family. The long and methodical scene in which Landa toys with the petrified farmer (Denis Menochet) as he endeavors to get him to reveal the whereabouts of the family exudes a palpable tension that sets the pattern for the rest of the long but thoroughly absorbing film.
Brad Pitt is unapologetically over the top as the unsophisticated but charismatic leader of the Basterds. He imbues the film with its comical nature, one augmented by the unlikely presence of Mike Myers as a plummy British General. If there is any failing on the film's part, it is its absence of an emotional core. Tarantino is more interested in extravagance and style than sentiment. But no one goes into his films with expectations of otherwise. With his name on the poster, his work could never be accused of false advertising. We know what he does best, and Inglourious Basterds is a prime example of it.
Kevin Murphy
