Tarantino Has Finally Made His Masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (6 September 2009)

In Nazi-occupied France, the Jews are being exterminated like rats. One escapes... only to later find herself mixed up with a German hero and Joseph Goebbels. At the same time, Lieutenant Aldo Rayne (Brad Pitt) leads a band of Jewish soldiers, not unlike the Dirty Dozen, who roam the European continent and slaughter, torture and disfigure Nazis at every stop. How do these two stories intertwine? Very well, if you ask me.
This film seems to be very controversial, which comes as some surprise to me. On one hand, my friend Matt disliked it with a passion, saying it had too much of Tarantino's silliness imposed. On the other, certain people including myself have declared this Tarantino's masterpiece, outshining "Pulp Fiction" and being one of the best films of 2009, if not the best. Strong direction, and easily Tarantino's best writing, moving away from his pop culture references to more serious fare.
The acting is wonderful, setting aside Brad Pitt and Eli Roth (who were great comic relief but not fantastic actors). I didn't even recognize Mike Myers, which is a good thing or I would have been appalled. The lead female Jew (Mélanie Laurent) and the Jew Hunter (Christoph Waltz) were perfectly balanced as strong characters. But the real strength of this film is in the writing, and subtle parallels between different segments of the film.
The opening scene features Colonel Hans Landa the Jew Hunter comparing Nazis to hawks and Jews to rats. For me, this screamed of a comparison to Art Spiegelman's "Maus" where Nazis were cats and the Jews mice. And these connections ran through the length of the film, up until the David Bowie song "Cat People" played in the third act. While the song did not originally refer to Nazis (I assume), it now fits perfectly with the Spiegelman reference and the inclusion of the line about "1000 years", shortly after the movie has a toast to the 1000-year Reich.
This all comes together in the theater scene, when the female lead is looking down from the projectionist booth at 350 Nazis she is about to kill. This is a reversal of the 350 killed from the "bird's nest" by her Nazi suitor, Private Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl). So, the tables have turned, and the "rat" becomes the "hawk". Though, perhaps ironically, the one Nazi she doesn't kill is the very man who massacred her family: he lives to escape to America.
There is another parallel between this film and GW Pabst's "White Hell". The film figures prominently on a billboard, but is also used by the British film historian to explain his accent. Later on, another character claims she broke her leg while mountain climbing. For those who haven't seen the Pabst film, this is the very plot: a mountain climber with a broken leg.
Another friend and I have debated over whether Landa recognizes Shoshanna at their meeting in the French restaurant. He claims yes, as Landa orders her milk and then puts his cigarette out in his cream, a reference to her earlier life on a dairy farm. I feel this is meant to cause tension, but there is no reason to believe Landa would recognize a woman he has never seen face to face and goes by a new name.
Tarantino is finally maturing as a director, moving away from his sophomoric days and pop culture fascination. Sure, he still has his moments -- the introduction of Sergeant Stiglitz (Til Schweiger), for example, or using Sam Jackson for a voice-over, or the Bear Jew -- but all in all this looks like a new direction that shows great promise and I expect Oscar nominations to be in the near future.