Film-making Perfection

Rating: 10/10 (23 August 2009)

A film brimming with creativity, perfect direction, and an incredibly enthralling storyline, one of 2009's best movies? Quentin Tarantino's appropriately named Inglourious Basterds fits quite snugly into this description. It's almost as if Tarantino has risen to such cinematic high standards that to see one of his films in a theater is simply mind-blowing. Basterds features the acting talents of Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, and many, many others.
In Nazi-occupied France, a young Jewish refugee Shosanna Dreyfus witnesses the slaughter of her family by Colonel Hans Landa. Narrowly escaping with her life, she plots her revenge several years later when German war hero Fredrick Zoller quickly takes an interest in her and arranges an illustrious movie premiere at the theater she now runs. With the promise of every major Nazi officer in attendance, the event catches the attention of the "Basterds", a group of Jewish-American guerrilla soldiers led by the ruthless Lt. Aldo Raine. As the relentless executioners advance and the conspiring young girl's plans are set in motion, their paths will cross for a fateful evening that will shake the very annals of history. (From IMDb)
Just as I have expressed countless times, I really love films that take on a life of their own and maintain a certain personality through their music. It's a thing where you hear a song and you instantly know it's from that film. And this movie is another perfect example of this phenomena. It's just perfect. The dramatic music is one of things that makes the movie so very magnificent. My favorite song in the movie was probably the usage of David Bowie's "Cat People (Putting Out the Fire)", which was just so very perfect in the context of the film.
Pinpointing the movie's finest performance is a much more difficult feat than simply giving kudos to the entire cast. Laurent's soft-spoken Shosanna? Waltz's delightfully evil Hans Landa? Pitt's off-the-wall Aldo Raine? Bruhl's kind but complicated Frederick Zoller? It's most accurately a combination of all the movie's performances. After all, where would it be without each of these core characters? All play a central role in the finale and all are played with care for detail. An ensemble piece has never fit together so perfectly before.
It's actually pretty interesting to hear about some of Tarantino's original casting choices, several of which could not be in the film due to scheduling conflicts. He was on a very strict schedule because he wanted the movie all ready in time for the Cannes film festival. Adam Sandler was attached as Donowitz "the Bear Jew" at one point. Had he not been filming Bedtime Stories and Funny People back-to-back, he would appeared in the film, and I don't think it would have been for the better. David Krumholtz was originally cast as Hirschberg (Samm Levine's character), and apparently in the script he had a much bigger role. Even Simon Pegg was set to play the British Hicox, but he was forced to pull out due to scheduling conflicts and abruptly replaced by Michael Fassbender.
The directing is absolutely phenomenal, I might even go so far as to say it's Tarantino's most structurally sound and well-flowing film. It just all comes together so perfectly well with so many different characters and acting talents filled with so many interesting camera angles. It's clearly a work by Tarantino, and it's fantastic to see another film of his because he has become such a modern staple of cinema. After this movie, Tarantino has officially and quite firmly stationed himself as one of this generation's finest directors/writers; Grindhouse, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, and Reservoir Dogs all received phenomenal reviews, as did this one.
And of course, there's the dialogue. Quentin Tarantino is perhaps most known for his long stretches of dialogue in his films that make or break his audience. For once, though, I don't really think there's any arguing: there's not a single line of dialogue in this taut drama that feels unnecessary or out of place. It all seems to flow and greatly add to the characters so that the film's final hour is all the more effective.
I can't say much about the film's final half hour without spoiling too much, but it surely is really strong stuff. It's beautifully crafted, somewhat poetic, and altogether perfect. All of the movie's many elements all come together at once for an absolutely insane climax. Perfectly orchestrated and perfectly paced, the final 30 minutes just might be some of the finest to have ever graced the history of cinema. And that's a big, bold statement.
In simple terms, Inglourious Basterds is a masterpiece of modern film-making, a tour-de-force that leads up to a shocking and powerful final act that throws convention out the window. What more could one ask for?