Tarantino and Hollywood hit back

Rating: 9/10 (22 August 2019)

What do Quentin Tarantino and Pedro Almodóvar have in common? A lot, of course. First of all, both are among the most important film directors of the generation with which we have the chance to be contemporaries. Each of them released on screen at the Cannes Festival this year a film that deals with the world of film and its heroes. Films belong to the category I call 'movies about movies', an apparently narcissistic preoccupation of cinematography, but one that has resulted in many memorable films. Apparently Almodóvar's film, 'Pain and Glory' is more personal, many of those who saw it defined it as autobiographical. I dare say that Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood" is largely a personal film, which tells a lot about the American director who is still threatening us to put an end to his film career. It tells it of course, in his own special style. The Tarantino style.
The most frequently heard criticism of this film is the one that claims it is too long. Maybe it's a justified claim. Maybe out of the 161 minutes of screening, 20 or 30 or 40 could have been cut out and then there would have also been a better balance between the two episodes that make up the story, episodes which take place six months apart, in 1969. But I must confess that I enjoyed each of these 161 minutes. Tarantino managed to transport us in his version of that year at the end of a decade that transformed America and the world, into the universe of the movie studios and in the Hollywood streets populated by famous actors and hopeful extras, by hippies and riches, a puzzle of bright kitsch and contrasts. I enjoyed the episodes from the films and television shows of the time, and I enjoyed sharing with the character of Sharon Tate, the starlet with a tragic destiny, in the darkness of a cinema hall the spectators' reactions to her acting in a supporting role in her last movie. Tarantino was only a child that year, but his insider vision over time, the combination of reality and imagination, between vintage films and his own implants works very well.
Tarantino also provides to Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt the opportunity of some of the fine roles in their fine careers. DiCaprio is fantastic in the role of the actor who feels his career is fading out and that his age catches behind before he managed to impose himself as a great star. His character is a combination of kitsch and self-doubt masked by boasting. Pitt ris his partner, a very Tarantinoesque role, and he again demonstrates the good reasons why he is the director's favorite actor. Even Al Pacino finds the opportunity in this film to play a sapid and important supporting role in the story. For much of the film, we have the illusion that Tarantino has renounced explicit violence as a means of cinematic expression. The last part of the film proves us wrong, the ending is spectacular, one of these that we expect from him, spectacular not by the graphics of violence (which is not lacking) but by ideas. Same as he has recovered in other well-known and controversial historical episodes, such as World War II and the Holocaust or civil war and slavery, Tarantino does not hesitate here to rectify history and to make justice, the way he knows to do it, a la Hollywood. Exaggerated? Implausible? Let's not forget the title of the movie. Fairy tales can be a source of serious lessons but the genre is not obliged to adhere to historical truths. In addition, we can, at any age, enjoy their beauty and charm.