When the serious and the non-serious rub shoulders with each other

Rating: 8/10 (25 December 2013)

When the serious and the non-serious rub shoulders with each other in a close borderline fashion, we get to see a certain rare quirkiness. The film Kill Bill as a finished work , simply put is eccentric. Now the serious is not as serious in actuality even within the context of the plot while the action is unfolding, as we seem to assume at first then drop it and then again pick it up only to drop it again. Both alternate in so rapid a manner for us to miss seeing the borderline between the two. So it brings a sort of relief in us from a fiercely farcical tension. Now this is obviously a film without any substance, without a soul so to speak. Or at least the aesthetic is too much on the face for us to see even a semblance of substance in near vicinity. It is for the most part our senses that revel in viewing the action while we are allowed, rather forced to put our finely cultivated sensibilities to rest thankfully for the stretch of the movie. To be sure, the deeper chord it touches upon by being referential to cinematic violence as portrayed in western flicks, martial arts or kung fu films (B grade cinema) does bring a nostalgic feeling of yesteryear cinema-viewing when we were in our schools and were not too serious about matters concerning soul and substance but instead believed innocently in all seriousness with our friends about myths, legends and stories. But then that's a kind of nostalgia we smile away and not hold it for long as what the film portrays or refers back to is such a non-serious, unreal and superficial aspect of our juvenile stage of lives, which is cinema itself. Such aesthetic works presents itself as light as a bird. It flees away with a mocking smile the moment we stare at it with our serious adult killer looks. The technique to achieve this effect is quite clear: which is to go a little over the top, but only this much and no more. The ultra-stylized barbaric scenes of violence portrayed in the film sheds the grossness inherent in any form of real violence instead transforms it to a pulpy something for us to consume and savor. The action moves just about exactly over the top, to make it appear stylish and appealing to our senses. Not just that it also manages not to fall in the pit of appearing all too ridiculous and comical or overtly cartoonish. So we neither could possibly take offence of the kind of violence portrayed nor dismiss it as ridiculously cartoonish. It hovers in the middle somewhere between the two for us not to grasp it firmly.The stylish killer woman warrior and the compassionate creator mother ; The sophisticated don of a violent squad and the father on the floor toddling with his kid. All In a single instance. And that is something eccentric about the film. And as if all that is not enough we also get to hear lines and dialogues delivered in a manner, churned and treated out of a theorized and pseudo-scholarly sort of text, a sublimated-something in contrast to the pulpy-something we find in the action scenes. This is not the controversial & heavy 'profane & the sacred' or even the 'ridiculous and the sublime' but the fair and light 'stylized barbarism & the sublimated prose' (The deadly don treats the childish concept of superheroes with a personal metaphysics!). So much for originality. The film escapes from the eye of both the adult and the child. Instead it appeals to the infant inside every adult, the long forgotten boy or girl inside us which likes to hear mythologies, glee happily to distant-world stories and legends. So we learn that the adult needs to be mature enough to bring the child over to the surface and glee & chuckle childishly while viewing the film.