Unbroken, Unchained, Unbelievable

Rating: 9/10 (29 December 2012)

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be plantation owners, because if Django Unchained is any indication, things just don't bode well for you. Heck, you might want to think twice about letting them see a second of this movie, what with all the blood and guts and colorful language. But putting that aside, as we must, Django Unchained is clearly one of the best movies of 2012, even one of the very best of Quentin Tarantino's strong career.
It's the antebellum South, and blacks and bought and sold like cattle. One of them, the titular Django, is being led through a thick forest, chained to several other male slaves, when a German dentist, a Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz) frees him, slaying his captors and bidding the remaining slaves a fond adieu. Schultz's plan is simple. He is actually a bounty hunter, and he is on the trail of three men wanted for murder and train robbery. He has discovered that Django knows the men on sight, and Schultz himself does not. Thus he deputizes the still-technically-a- slave Django to help him find the three baddies; if Django can point out the men, Schultz will grant him his freedom.
Their trek takes them to the plantation of one Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), who's pretty vicious even by slaveholder standards. Schultz and Django pose as a duo who wish to purchase a mandingo fighter, with Django - as a free man - the proclaimed expert on such fighters. You see, Schultz and Django have an ulterior motive - they wish to find Django's wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who was sold separately from Django, and they have reason to believe she resides with Candie.
As bullets fly and flecks and spurts of blood practically pirouette in the air, one can easily appreciate the majesty of the art of film. Yes, that's an over-the-top sentiment, but it doesn't apply to many movies. Quentin Tarantino is famed for trying to get just the right shot, much like Stanley Kubrick before him. There's a certain poetic symmetry to every cocked pistol, every framed desert background, every lash of a terrifying whip. This is a brutal film to watch, and it is unflinching in its depiction of the true evil of slavery. The domination of fellow man was bad enough, but the physical and ultimately psychological terrorism defies description. It was not a proud moment in our country's history.
But we in the 21st century know all about that, and this film is not simply about the brutality of man versus man. Believe it or not, it is a love story and the lengths to which a man will go, the horrors that he will endure, to be reunited with his beloved. Foxx is astonishing as Django, who's played not as an overzealous vengeful machine but rather a taciturn, intelligent, multilayered man among men. Schultz, his conniving compatriot, is every bit as compelling as he was in Tarantino's earlier Inglourious Basterds; crisp, wise, always many steps ahead of his foe. DiCaprio is (surprisingly) convincing as the menacing, degenerate Candie. At one point, Candie rhetorically asks why, as he is always surrounded by black folks, none of them rise up to kill him; I wondered why there were no white women around him at all, save for his sister, whom he mouth kisses, but maybe that was just mere coincidence. I digress. Samuel L. Jackson turns up as the head black man on campus who serves his master well - but is he more Luke Skywalker or more Darth Vader? He's also almost unrecognizable playing a old, cane-leaning codger with the mouth of a sailor and the crusty sentimentality of the worst grandfather ever. It's a good role for him.
I did mention this is one heck of a bloody movie, right? You've heard of Quentin Tarantino, right? Okay, then. If you dislike gory stuff, stay away. This is an homage to the old spaghetti Westerns of the past, although Tarantino himself refers to this one as a Southern, seeing as how it takes place mostly in the Deep South. That means confrontations with sheriffs, marshals, bandits, and other colorful - pardon the bad pun - people. It is not a pretty, romanticized ode to the West. It is a mean time filled with vile behavior, and of this comes the love of two.
Now comes the raving part, or at least more of it. I loved this movie. Thought it was terrific from start to finish. Some twists, all plausible. And you should see the cast list - a who's who of who is that? Don Johnson? Tom Wopat? Franco Nero? Russ Tamblyn and his daughter Amber? I love Tarantino's casting. Not to gush, but it's always nice to see a director who appreciates cinema's long history. Add the attention to detail, the courage to show some grisly scenes that could cause one to look away in horror, and you have a rumbling roar of a movie.