Filmmaking at its best

Rating: 9/10 (11 May 2003)

I've had the occasion to see again, in a row, "Reservoir Dogs", "Pulp Fiction" and "Jackie Brown".
Tarantino is a talented director, for sure. But the incredible high rates that the first two films get have a lot to do with hype and the exposition of crude violence. I do like them, just that I think they didn't deserve such reverence. I think that many people didn't realize what they were really looking at (seeing only the "cool" stuff, not the inner qualities of Tarentino's filmmaking), and the reaction to "Jackie Brown" seems to confirm this.
Personally, as a cinephile, I consider "Jackie Brown" as a better achievement than the two other movies. Actually, I think it's a terrific movie, reinventing classicism and the art of slow pace, long forgotten in the mainstream movies industry. I can't find any flaw in it. And it's so totally honest. A remedy to all the cheap fast stupid stuff Hollywood feeds us with.
I was totally immersed in this great movie, which cleverly uses awesome (if not original) cinematic narration "tricks" that makes one's interest grow all along. And what a cast! The plot in itself is rather average, but it's not the point anyway. Like with many great directors, it's in the WAY the story is told that the meaning lies.
I'm not amazed that some people think it's too slow. The same people certainly can't cope with anything that's not MTV-paced, like Kubrick, Hitchcock, Polanski... They simply are unable to appreciate this kind of stuff. Too bad for them. They don't know what they're missing. Someday, maybe.
Tarentino was actually the last director I was expecting to give us such a film as "Jackie Brown". I didn't expect him to be so adult. I was wrong, and I'm happy I was.