Long, very well-written, well-directed feminist film

Rating: 8/10 (4 September 2009)

This film left me a bit dumbfounded, as I'd forgotten Tarantino's staunch penchant for writing female roles in the feminist sense, i.e. portraying women as they are. Stanley Kubrick notoriously once answered a question of what he likes when making films by saying he knew what he didn't like, and to me, that is the essential of Tarantino's scripting of female roles. So, all in all, a feminist script. Good. But what about the film in other aspects? While the Kill Bill series served as a complete homage to Asian cinema, especially the pulp parts, this film waves hi to the western spaghetti films while staying true to his dialogue-cum-monologues. In every scene, Tarantino seemingly has decided that one or two character steals the scene with some quite outlandish acting. While Christoph Waltz's acting is completely wonderful, the direction is tight and led me through a simple and great film, where two parallel stories start the film: one French girl is separated from her family because of the Nazis and small American group of soldiers, commanded by Brad Pitt's character, is led into Germany to "kill Nazis". Every scene is very non-apologetic. No big Hollywood scores are played as people are killed and most of the killing is displayed as-is. Come to think of it, most of everything in this film is displayed as-is, i.e. not sugar-coated. It's a funny, tragic and hugely entertaining story of revenge - an obvious line through most films by Tarantino - and is well worth your time.