Stay For The Slaughter, Be Stunned By The Surprise

Rating: Null/10 (23 August 2004)

It is unfortunate that the greatest and most stunning works by the most brilliant directing minds in cinema, are never honored until years after they have wrought their masterpieces, and loosed them upon the world. We may now count Quentin Tarantino in that esteemed company, as KILL BILL, VOL. 2 brings his four-hour opus to its stunning and unexpectedly moving climax.
Viewing both volumes together back-to-back is a revelation; you finally come to understand why Tarantino meant his epic to be experienced in one sitting. True, he has used this film as a playground to indulge in his wildest Saturday-morning-Shaolin-slasher-spaghetti-western fantasies, complete with a literally orgiastic streak of over-the-top violence and gore. But for those willing to peer beneath the trappings (and what most would consider travesties), is the single most important element that sweetens the sour blood-and-bile fueled revenge that powers The Bride like a post-feminist Energizer Bunny with a Blade...the redeeming and overwhelming power of love.
I've read some posts that actually liken this to some of the great relationship dramas like "Kramer Vs. Kramer" or "Ordinary People", and as sick or off the mark as these comparisons may be, trust me on this one: actually, they're not. And that is about as much as I can say without dropping the spoiler that ties both parts of KB together.
I've already ranted enough about QT as an auteur; what deserves just as many kudos is the eye and the feel he has for selecting exactly the right actors for the right roles. As the benevolent-yet-malevolent Bill, David Carradine will probably never again have a role of this caliber in the remainder of his career. Ditto the fearless Michael Madsen as Bud, and Daryl Hannah, who erases whatever sympathy we felt for her in BLADE RUNNER by playing supreme snake-bitch Elle Driver with balls-to-the-wall panache, and whose comeuppance is about as gruesome and fitting as anything you'd find in other QT films.
And then, there's Uma. Not even Meryl Streep could show as much passion and complete commitment to a role as Uma has done with The Bride, and Meryl is considered the best we have; our American equivalent of a Dame Judi Dench or an Emma Thompson. Because so many members of the Academy will be turned off by the "fanboy-fantasia" portion of KB, they may never even notice how with seeming effortlessness and uncanny grace, she crosses every emotional boundary an actress can in a single role, and then travels the arc again backwards, charting The Bride's trial-by-fire and transformation from vengeful Valkyrie, to someone so tender and loving that it seems impossible to find those dualities existing in the same persona.
Which brings us back to the very spine of this revenge/passion play. Even in the midst of people so seemingly evil and unredeemable, that you'd never want to get within three hundred miles of them in real life, it's all about love. How its loss can wound us, twist us, tear us apart, destroy our lives and drive us to seek to destroy others. And how finding it, whether for the first time or for that most fortunate of second chances, can transform, heal and uplift us in ways that no words in our language can accurately describe.
But then again, hasn't that always been one of the hallmarks of QT's work?
I hope that in my lifetime, this gifted filmmaker does truly receive the recognition he deserves. And not when he's nearly on his deathbed or in a wheelchair.
For KILL BILL, in its entirety: Five Stars. My highest recommendation.