Why Tarantino you do forgets yourself!

Rating: 6/10 (3 February 2013)

Django Unchained is sporadically exciting, tense, funny and engaging, yet ultimately unsatisfying and unpleasant; of all Tarantino's films, this is the one that I have the least desire to watch again. While Tarantino's (huge) influence over film in the last 20 years often boils down to his use of music, pop culture references, editing or narrative tricks, the central problems with this film are found in the two areas that Tarantino usually excels: his control over pacing and tone.
Many Tarantino imitators resort to rapid editing and non-linear plots in order to create a sense of vitality and to mimic his style. However, Tarantino's best work generates this energy through sure and controlled pacing, both within individual scenes and throughout the film itself. Consider the Jews under the floor scene in Inglourious Basterds, or the opening diner discussion in Reservoir Dogs. In both, Tarantino allows the scenes to unfold organically, letting his dialogue create the momentum and interest rather than any tricky cinematography or editing. In Django Unchained, this skill deserts him. That the entire film is undeniably overlong is exacerbated by its poor structure. The first half of the film plays like a TV show or game; our heroes go from episode to episode essentially doing the same thing in the same way to undifferentiated bad guys. It is only when Di Caprio's character is introduced that the actual narrative thrust becomes apparent. More problematic is the pacing within the scenes themselves. While Tarantino does allow most of his scenes to unfold as in his superior works, most of Django Unchained lacks dynamism or uniqueness; while there are almost always scenes in his films which standout, Django is largely forgettable. One reason for this is that his writing and characters lack spark; if we compare Waltz' character here and in Inglourious Basterds – where he is essentially playing different sides of the same coin – the almost tedious nature of a lot of his scenes in Django are all too evident; being verbose does not equal being interesting.
That being said, a film like Kill Bill Vol. 2 also commits lacks steadfast pacing, but is eminently more enjoyable than Django. The ultimate flaw then relates to tone. Tarantino's is a violent filmmaker, yet there is always a sense of fun in his depictions of it; he never seems mean-spirited, which makes their gratuitousness entirely acceptable and enjoyable (most of the fights in Kill Bill Vol. 1 attest to this fact). While Django does contain a lot of this kind of violence, it also contains the most brutal and cruel examples in any Tarantino film. The Mandingo fight scene and dog attack are truly horrible and lack the lightness of touch or over the top un-realism of his previous work. What makes these attacks of brutal violence so much worse is one of Tarantino's traits – the contrasting of violence and comedy. While this works effectively in his other films, here the sheer brutality of some of those scenes along the historical baggage that comes with their setting makes the broad comedic moments seem almost cringe-worthy.
The tonal affects on characterisation are perhaps a more fundamental concern. Unlike in a lot of his other work, Tarantino wants us to care about the characters, particularly Django and Hilde. It is their relationship that provides the motivation for the film, and the naturalistic way that they are depicted – both in terms of their dialogue and their performances – suggests that Tarantino understood the need for both to be believable; the success of his film is intimately linked to how much we connect with them. Unfortunately, for all his brilliance as a writer, Tarantino has never been skilled at creating characters that contain 'real' emotions, who speak in a 'real' voice or who contain motivations of a 'real' person. In his classic films however, this is not a problem. In those films, Tarantino's characters are the same tokens or representations of types that we have seen in the hands of less capable writers and directors. What makes them immeasurably more enjoyable are great casting and great dialogue; these characters come to life without the need for us to invest in them because they act and sound like they need to, not because we care about them as characters per se (did anyone really care when Jules gets shot in Pulp Fiction?) While there were some fine performances in the film, particularly by Leo and Sammy L, none of the characters are given the time and depth to become anything more than mouthpieces for the dialogue (which as I have mentioned lacked Tarantino's usual spark and nuance). Take the character of Hilde, who was criminally underdeveloped in the film, particularly as Tarantino puts her through some horrible and unpleasant situations; the amount of trauma we witness being inflicted on her makes her much more deserving of depth. Regrettably when Tarantino does actually allow us moments where we can care about the outcomes of the characters, he undercuts himself by the unevenness of the tone. So, after the (first) climax of the film, our concern about the fate of Hilde and our emotional connection to what we have seen in the house, is ruined by the ridiculous scene with the 'Australians'; like the eyes in the pillow case scene, while they are funny in and of themselves, they clash with the rest of the film in an awkward and unpleasant way. Ultimately Tarantino has created a film that feels more influenced by pale versions of his own films; he forgets that aspects that were at work in his classic films and resorted to ultra- violence to stay relevant.