superfilm and brilliant social commentary

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2012)

Just saw Django Unchained last night - and it is a great movie. Best film from Tarantino since Pulp Fiction. Entertaining as hell, it's also thought-provoking, stylish, funny, exciting, and also true-to-life. It tells the the truth about a great evil of American history - slavery - wrapped in a fable of heroism and true love.
Django Unchained is basically a love story. Love sets Django and Brunhilde free. They gain their freedom, despite the entire evil system of slavery, through their devotion to one another and the help of an unlikely ally, an itinerant German dentist-turned-bounty hunter, King Schultz.
Schultz is played by Christoph Waltz, in a portrayal as brilliant as his bad-guy turn in Inglorious Basterds. The killer-dentist is drawn into the love story as he recognizes Django as a modern-day incarnation of the Germanic hero Siegfried, the dragon slayer. Only this time, the dragon is slavery itself, incarnated as Calvin Candie, played to hideous perfection by Leo DiCaprio.
DiCaprio's Candie is a perfect villain: evil and disgusting, yet completely believable. Most of the negative reviews of this movie have come from Southerners who find Candie too close for comfort; unfortunately, his form of corrupt brutality is still found among the racist rednecks of this country. Sad but true.
Jamie Foxx is excellent as Django. When we first meet him he is still a slave, and can barely comprehend the possibility of freedom for himself or his beloved. We see Django develop from degraded chattel to triumphant freeman over the course of the film, and it is a wonderful transformation. Initially, when he is first freed by Schultz, he can hardly believe that he can choose his own clothing. By the end, he is a hero of Wagnerian proportions, who brings down the entire rotten edifice of Candieland through his singular skill, courage, and intelligence. It is a wonderful sight to behold.
The villains are almost as good as the heroes here. DiCaprio and Jackson present the banality of evil in rotten technicolor and spaghetti-western splendor. Jackson as the evil quisling is horrifying and true - I don't think any movie has ever portrayed this kind of character in such dismal clarity and repugnant verity - truly a star turn for Samuel L. Bravo and congrats, this was a difficult role, and he pulls it off to perfection.
Quentin Tarantino set himself a difficult (maybe impossible) bar with the brilliance of Pulp Fiction. Maybe he'll never reach that level again. But Django Unchained shows that he still has the potential of greatness within him. It's his best movie since Pulp Fiction, even better than Jackie Brown. Wise, courageous, and funny as hell, Django is a instant classic. Move over, Blondie, there's a new sheriff in town, and his name Django. (The D is silent!)