Vengeance

Rating: 9/10 (4 May 2011)

The film "Inglorious Bastards" is about a war between Nazi Germany and the Allied Jews. The Nazis are slaughtering Jewish families from the command of Adolf Hitler. SS Colonel Hans Landa is essentially in charge of hunting the Jews. A group of soldiers led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine attempt to kill the Nazis. Also, a woman named Shosanna Dreyfus who owns a cinema attempts to kill Adolf Hitler and the higher ranking members of Nazi Germany. Shosanna Dreyfus successfully kills Hitler and the higher rankings member of Nazi Germany by setting fire to her theater. This film follows both story lines as they attempt to take down Nazi Germany.
The theme of this movie is pure vengeance. Hitler and his Nazis have done terrible things and slaughtered many Jews. The group lead by Raines is made up of Jewish-American boys who are seeking vengeance on Hitler and his Nazis for killing their kind essentially. Shosanna Dreyfus is seeking vengeance for what Hitler and his Nazis has done to her and her family.
This movie is mostly shot in high-key lighting. There are little areas of darkness in the movie, except for the scenes in the bar. This may display the mood that is happening at the current time. Even though the movie may seem sad to most (the killing of so many people), both parties seem to be content in what they are doing because they feel they are doing the right thing. In the parts where the film gets a more low-key lighting, it is when one of the parties is in trouble per say. One example is when the solders led by Raine are preparing to go into the basement bar, they feel it is a poorly set up area because if the situation went wrong they would be fighting in an enclosed area where there is little room, and they also cannot see if the men they wanting to kill are in there. They feel uncomfortable, and therefore, the lighting may be representing this. This goes along with the theme because Hitler and his Nazis have done terrible things already, it is the soldiers and Shosanna's time to seek their vengeance for what they have done. This is something they want and are striving for and will be happy when they finally give Hitler and his Nazis what they have coming. Essentially, the sad time has already passed.
This film also briefly uses the element of flashback when Shosanna Dreyfus is in the restaurant and she sees SS Colonel Hans Landa walk in. she flashes back to when she was a young girl and was chased out of the house that she was staying in that was illegal housing her family and hiding them from the Nazis. Dreyfus ran from Landa, and this is what she flashes back to when she sees him. This reiterates the theme of vengeance because Dreyfus is thinking about what Landa has done to her and her family, and there begins her plot to kill those in the theater for the viewing of "A Nation's Pride." This film is similar in theme to the film "The Patriot". In "The Patriot", Benjamin Martin's son was killed by a British Officer. Because of this he forms a militia to go after the British army out of vengeance for what they have done to him, his family, and his son. He tends to be more like Raine's army of soldiers rather than Shosanna's technique of taking out Nazi Germany.
In the end, the movie is about vengeance in its purest form. It shows one technique, that of Raine's soldiers, who choose to confront the Nazi's in a gruesome and head-on way. While yet another revenge technique is shown by Shosanna, who chooses to be sly, sneaky, and more plotting than her counterparts in her way of taking out Nazi Germany. Both techniques shows the true theme of vengeance against someone/something that has wronged a person.