Disturbing, impressing, disgusting, funny... and even teaching

Rating: 8/10 (25 August 2009)

I can't say I was a great Tarantino fan - though I like "Pulp Fiction". And I am German, which might be an interesting fact reviewing a movie about killing Germans (equaled to being Nazis). And - with a night gone by and time to think about it - I appreciate this one as well.
Because I hate stories dividing the characters into "good ones" and "baddies", drawing forth the line of good-prevailing-over-evil-tales just once more. Those are often the ones whose heroes can serve as models for a one-sided point of view and violence as means of a solution to a problem. In this movie almost everyone is or at least intends to become a murderer, fully justified by his or her own point of view as it seems. This leads to an excess of violence, cruelty and retaliation which, I was a little surprised to become aware of, had quite a disturbing effect on me. It's not that I wasn't used to bloody war movies (finding it inadequate to conceal the atrocities of war). But the unscrupulous way of (over)killing, this continuous mistreating of other human beings - consequently dehumanized by their killers - ends up in a kind of nightmare where there are no "good ones" anymore. It really urged me to think about the way we are treating others, how small the gap to the "dark side" is. How suddenly the feeling changes from desire for revenge to compassion with the punished. Wrath is more than comprehensible but hatred and revenge lead to a disastrous Nemesis. (Even the average American might know about the infamous Nazi-German "Vergeltungsmaßnahmen" (retaliation actions), often against civilians. Or take a look at the middle east. It's a vicious circle.) You could even call it a spiritual movie this way... weird way of delivering the message though...
This has nothing to do with my nationality: I would have said the same if it was a film about Germans killing Russians or Jews - f****d up all the same! But maybe I could identify even more with the "baddies" this time. Tarantino fosters feelings of empathy for them (for a soldier, trying to protect his comrades or for a father, trying to stay alive to see his new-born son), partly even more than for the members of the Basterds. So I suppose it's intended to blur the borders this way. Great job! In addition the multinational casting and the different spoken languages do an incredible job creating a tense atmosphere! Thumbs up!
Great job of course by Christoph Waltz as well, I must agree! His action alone is worth watching the movie, awesome!!! I wasn't bored by the longer dialog parts - other than in "Death Proof" I don't regard them as unnecessary. And they serve as counterparts to the actions scenes. I'd say it's still quite a bloody one (and I can understand everyone disgusted by such gore) but very well worth watching - and thinking about it.