A Strange Mix

Rating: Null/10 (20 October 2003)

Tarantino does it again! As much as I want to hate the man (well, I do, in fact, hate the MAN--just not his movies) he is a phenomenally gifted film-maker. Kill Bill Vo. 1 is clearly the work of someone in thrall to movies. One of the reviews herein states that Tarantino hasn't the guts to go all the way and make an exploitation movie, but I think that comment slightly misses the mark. I think he sees the potential in exploitation and uses it as a platform from which to create beauty and art--even though said art might contain elements one doesn't normally associate with beauty (cruelty, gore, coarseness, venality). I think his use of Brechtian distancing is quite appropriate and really very funny. Sure, one is always aware that this is "just a movie"--that's part of the point. Not the entire point, however, or Kill Bill would not be such an emotional movie. I found moments of the movie nearly unbearable--and they weren't the violent ones. The moment in which Uma Thurman discovers a child has witnessed a violent act is not staged for comedy but for pathos, and it achieves this in the simplest way: with silence, with stillness. The overhead shot when The Bride walks away from the child across the cereal-strewn kitchen floor is absolutely beautiful. And Thurman's sobbing when she wakes from her coma--how can anyone not respond to that? (Though the director wisely cuts it short for an amusing "play dead" gag, it is a strong moment--and an important moment in that it evokes just enough sympathy to put us squarely on The Bride's side. We know nothing about her--she might be the "bad guy"--but Tarantino knows we have to root for her, or his film is meaningless.) But for all my pontificating, I'm neglecting to say that Kill Bill is, above all else, really quite funny. The violence is over the top (another distancing trick) so as not to actually offend, and it becomes comic. The Bride's thirst for revenge is not played for laughs, but the vengeance itself is. Who can be upset over literal geysers of blood? (This is a good place to add that the stage blood is very well done--it may spill and shoot and erupt more than it might in real life, but it does look real--not always the case in a violent film.) The film's single funniest moment is Uma Thurman throwing on a pair of sunglasses to "disguise" herself (like the blood-soaked hospital gown and the two corpses nearby wouldn't be cause for suspicion). The entire cast has the slightly stylized speech rhythms down, and everyone gets their comic moment. Daryl Hannah makes up for a LOT of bad performances just by playing it hyper-straight, and therefore making her scene one of the comic high points of the film (it helps if you're a DePalma fan--as I am--to access all the humor Tarantino throws into this entire hospital room sequence). And Chiaki Kuriyama is the scariest/funniest villain we've seen in quite awhile. It's a smart performance--she can play Go-Go utterly straight (and very scary!) and still fit into the fabric of the movie because the sight of her swinging her chain while dressed in a schoolgirl uniform is deadpan comedy. And Uma Thurman is an absolute revelation: she should work with Tarantino more often, they seem to "get" each other, or at least what the other one is looking for and capable of onscreen. She has to jump from sorrow to anger to humor (she definitely sees what's funny about all this killing) and every other emotion in the human spectrum often very quickly. It is a performance so completely rounded, you know it can only be the result of so much hard work. And unlike, say, a DeNiro or Streep, we don't see the research. She is remarkably open--the emotions just come pouring out of her--kind of like all that blood.