"This may be my masterpiece"

Rating: 10/10 (6 September 2009)

When asked about his reaction to looming viewer expectations regarding his new film in an interview with Empire movie magazine, director Quentin Tarantino was typically frank: "I want high ideals, I want gigantic expectations, I want people to expect a masterpiece!" And, while such monstrously high self-confidence might be considered an inevitable stumbling ground for any artist, Tarantino remains one of the perilously few contemporary filmmakers who can make good on his boasts. And his new film, Inglourious Basterds is no exception. Cocky, outlandish, self-indulgent and with ambitions the size of a small country, Tarantino's twisted sense of humour pervades the film even to the point of his gleeful misspelling of its title. And while the debate over which film is Tarantino's best remains an eternal one, it is difficult to dispute that his latest is, as the last line in the film itself cheekily suggests, somewhat of a "masterpiece".
Suffice to say, viewer enjoyment of Tarantino's latest will depend largely on their prior opinion of the director, as Inglourious Basterds only exemplifies the cinematic qualities which made him so infamous in the first place. Unashamedly in love with his characters' voices, Tarantino's script is a typically convoluted affair, devoting scene after scene to trickily worded verbal exchanges monologues in French and German as well as English, which, along with the overlapping strands of parallel narratives and multiple characters, makes the film somewhat cumbersome for viewers expecting two and a half hours of nonstop Nazi-scalping action. But, with an inversion of expectations also typical of its director, the real action lies in the dialogue, as Tarantino ramps up the claustrophobic tension to unbearable levels, loading each speech with layer upon layer of misleading meaning and thinly disguised threat. In the world of Inglourious Basterds, a simple conversation about milk becomes more painfully suspenseful than a holdup at gunpoint, making the film's two and a half hour running time fly by while remaining utterly engrossing.
Of course, it would be foolish to expect a credibly historic piece, and Tarantino, despite his keen attention to stylized period costuming, props and sets, is gleefully content to butcher any semblance to WW2 reality, re-writing the history books as glibly as he plunders influences from past films. While the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone are clearly on Tarantino's mind (complete with Ennio Morricone musical cues), he similarly borrows the aggressive, frontward propelling sense of purpose from military films such as The Dirty Dozen, giving his film a feeling of being simultaneously free-form and whimsical yet brutally pointed and focused. And, of course, it is impossible to ignore how sadistically funny the film is, all violence, mayhem and incomparable tension aside, as, in typical Tarantino fashion, the viewer is made to laugh both from sheer nerves and in reaction to the sheer audacious breadth of the spectacle on display, including a finale which twists expectations to the extent of truly needing to be seen to be believed. Also commendable is Tarantino's use of film itself, setting his climax in a movie theatre, and demonstrating the power of cinema to inspire, corrupt and destroy, both figuratively and literally, lending nuance upon nuance of self-reflexive themes to be unearthed. For all its sadistic relishing in Nazi-killing and gleeful dodging conventions, Tarantino's film is as hard thinking as it is hard hitting, enjoyable on so many levels simultaneously.
Of course, characterization in a Tarantino film is also approached from a direction unlike any other, as characters are introduced, given detailed backstories, then flippantly discarded, giving a larger than life, almost cartoonish feel to most of the acting (Hitler and Goebbels certainly emerge as more pantomime than anything else). Such an approach seems to be one relished by Brad Pitt, flat out hilarious as Ltd. Aldo Raine, the leader of the 'Basterds', skewering his star charisma with malicious delight and savouring every last accent-mutilated syllable of his dialogue. Yet, as public opinion has suggested, the true show stealer lies in its antagonist, Christoph Waltz's Nazi Col. Hanz Landa. Deviously charming and delightfully malicious, Waltz commands the screen with an eerie precision, making sense of every contradictory character trait and morphing them into a character so larger than life, so devastatingly memorable, impossible not to hate yet equally impossible not to secretly like, that Landa is unlikely to be forgotten for years to come. In contrast is similar breakout star Mélanie Laurent, continuing Tarantino's tradition of strong female protagonists, as vengeful Jewish cinema proprietor Shoshanna, bottling a quiet dignity and furious indignant rage into a character almost as memorable and impactful as Landa.
And no Tarantino film would be complete without an equally colourful supporting cast, as Eli Roth chomps scenes with brutal delight as the 'Basterd' known as 'The Bear Jew'. Michael Fassbender delivers the most realistic and ultimately sympathetic character as an undercover British officer, showing the charisma, charm and magnetic presence of a true star. Diane Kruger is similarly superb as a defecting German movie star, contrasting her character's flamboyant public persona with her gritty desperation and remaining consistently watchable throughout. Daniel Brühl does a careful job of rendering likable a spoiled Nazi propaganda hero without making him excessively sympathetic, delivering an equally masterful performance, and August Diehl is chillingly memorable as a suspicious Nazi in the fabled 'tavern scene'. Finally, watch for Mike Meyers as a British general, whose inclusion appears just one more gleefully irreverent poke at convention, and the tendency for the historical film genre to take itself too seriously.
Inglourious Basterds could be described in an exhausting abundance of ways: strange, daring, audacious, inventive, hilarious, terrifying, thought provoking, exhilarating, gleefully amoral and chock full of unexpected dodging or inversion of cliché. Yet, in the end, the most fitting way of describing the film is yet another of its director's staggeringly arrogant yet justifiable boasts: "a big f*cking night at the movies". And there is little more audiences could ask for.
-9.5/10