All about making violence beautiful

Rating: 3/10 (26 January 2006)

while watching this movie, I was really tempted to stop it, and return the DVD. You see, my ex-wife pushed it into my hands, telling me how great that movie was. I didn't want to watch it because I knew it was very violent. Well, I should have stuck to my original decision.
Violence is presented as an art form in this movie. As if seeing fountains of blood spurting out of people's bodies was a beautiful sight... Sigh, it seems to me that we are back to the roman times with people cheering as the martyrs were being fed to the lions.
So what of the cinematographic skills of Tarantino? Well, yes, I too detected some reuse of master's techniques. I heard the spaghetti western music and saw its very very close-up shots. I got the De Palma's split screen, and the Carrie scene all covered with blood. Even the big fight scene had been done before in one of the Zatoichi's movies. And there were a few others too, but really, what's the point of going on and on? On one hand, we have a pretty simple plot (I am not going to go over that here, others have done it very well) and on the other a director with a vision made up of the great masters ideas. OK, Tarantino does know how to direct a movie, and some of his use of the great masters influence is acceptable, but... here I thought it was just too much. Combined with an overly simple story and an excessive level of violence, his overuse of others grand ideas becomes just that, a succession of tricks. As far as I am concerned, violence and cinematographic tricks are just no substitute for a good story, no matter how many of them you mix into the pot.