Tarantino's Spaghetti War-film

Rating: 1/10 (9 August 2012)

One can imagine Tarantino as a young man admiring Sergio Leone's grand epic style in such classics as The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and Once Upon The Time In The West. As an adult, and now with a huge cinematic budget at his disposal does his best to imitate Leone but weakens the effect by introducing cheap and frankly adolescent gimmicks. The opening scene, with its grand outdoor setting prepares the viewer for a better film than follows. This opening, although lifted from finer films, is the high point of the movie since behind Tarantino's drawn out style there is a tension dues to the viewer implicitly knowing that something bad is about to happen.
In the next scene, the Basterds are introduced in a manner which is equally silly and sadistic. On screen graphics and a voice over (used for the only time in the film) are indicators of the director's laziness. Someone should have told him "Show not tell" is the basis of good writing.
This film might be seen as a watershed in Tarantino's career inasmuch as his personal mannerisms -rambling scenes and sadistic violence- have come to dominate rather than inform his work. His taste for rather long-winded and shapeless scenes was always mitigated by his ability to write taut energetic dialogue. However since most of the scenes here are in French with subtitles ("pretentious? Moi?") that attribute of his art is lost and many scenes outstay their welcome.
Nor is the dialogue he writes fit for purpose. He has no sense of an authentic 1940s tone. Having a black guy come on and say "what the f***" might pass muster in a contemporary but sounds (or reads rather, since it is subtitled) as wrong in this setting particularly as the character, a black projectionist, utters this in front of his girlfriend, something which would have been considered rather bad form at the time. A small point perhaps, but it does expose a greater deficiency in Tarantino's work. Does Tarantino have a lazy and default default "black guy speak" to be used on all occasions?
Instead Tarantino diverts the attention by focusing on unimportant minutiae, something which makes him seem deeper than he really is at least among shallow critics. The camera lingers on pipes being lit and other such details. There is an interminable scene where the heroine is interviewed by the Nazi chief, potentially interesting, but Tarantino detracts from it by focusing on cream. Why?
The poorly chosen music is another deficiency. Like the cream scene, this often detracts rather than enhances the experience. 1940s Germany is not evoked by blues guitar or David Bowie and the scene in which the heroine dies is ruined by inappropriate music.
But possibly the worst sin is the violent reprisals meted out. Here once again Tarantino reveals himself (as do the Cannes audience who gave this a standing ovation) as an overgrown adolescent. The allies behave in a truly barbaric fashion, killing surrendered soldiers in cold blood then scalping them or torturing them, usually by cutting a swastika in the forehead. This is an outrageous slur on allied soldiers.