Lurid Fiction and Movie Like Many Others and No Other

Rating: 7/10 (15 June 2008)

Action films have become popular in the last few decades of cinema history. While among a considerable number of audience, these movies play a decisive role of entertainment, there are also people who claim that they are not very innovative due to the constant themes built upon murder and sex. Therefore, if you see PULP FICTION without much insight, you will surely have this impression: it is a movie of no linear content, so much filled with decadent aspects of murder, vulgarity, crimes, drug abuse and sex. However, having seen PULP FICTION in a more detailed way, you strangely realize that this movie is unique, stands on its own; in other words, you begin to realize that it is quite something.
Since so many people have already discussed the content, it would be useless to analyze it now. I'd like to concentrate rather on something more extravagant and courageous for the reviewer: the intentions of the director and all the staff. These different but deadly vivid stories which strangely link the main characters together and which finally change the lives of some do not appear to be something extraordinary, moralistic, overwhelming and exceptionally convincing. They are simply a depiction of criminal life in American metropolis. This is life, not its ideal, its model but real life filled rather with decadence than virtue! The characters seem to follow the advice that Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) gives once to the boxer named Butch (Bruce Willis) "F*** ambition" and fill their days with crimes, sex, and drugs. Yet, the very core of those events is a single moment affecting the future, affecting the mind, the universe of a reality. In this respect, the whole movie is a "mosaic" fiction of these single moments that seriously influence not only the events depicted but also the viewer's psyche, the viewer's thoughts.
Thanks to obscene script and lurid stories but good performances, we are all led to the specific world of PULP FICTION. The viewer is intensely with Butch (Bruce Willis) in his "Gold Watch" sequence as well as with Vincent Vega (John Travolta) when he meets Mia (Uma Thurman) at Jack Rabbit Slims'. You may not agree with these fictitious decadent worlds, yet you have to accept them, absorb them, you have to shout "I do not care for the rest" when you decide to see PULP FICTION ... that is a particular power of the movie, something many other films of the genre are short of.
If you ask me what moments I liked, I'll tell you something pretty unconventional but true: "Ignore your perception of film for the time you watch this one!" It's an entirely different movie called by some "a movie of the mob." It is Tarantino where you either love his moments or despise them. The "Gold Watch" story is terrific when a boxer becomes so much absorbed by the watch he got from his father. Can you imagine that value of historic gift the father gave to his son? He kept it even in the most "taboo" parts of his body. Butch-Fabienne moments are wonderfully hilarious and nicely sensual. I also liked Mia-Vincent meeting and her words about silence at the table. The final scene is very good, too. Is it a renewed shepherd? Perhaps an odd one but appealing one? What a look at God and faith!
However, it seems crucial to state that PULP FICTION by Quentin Tarantino also has its serious dangers (perhaps it is even too leniently said). This is a movie where exaggeration and the lack of good taste are really present. For instance, the rape on Marsellus Wallace is a very disturbing moment. I also detested Mia's overdose and injection that she gets in the house of Vincent's drug dealing friend. Besides, I highly criticize the sequence "The Bonnie Situation" with the plot of one body - no head and the characters clean the blood flooded car from the parts of brain. This is Tarantino, you may justify. However, I am certain that there are lots of people who will rather concentrate on this facet expressing a strong criticism and no one, even people who consider PULP FICTION a masterpiece, cannot ignore that opposite viewpoint - the movie is filled with graphic violence.
But of course, when watching PULP FICTION, you cannot skip one thing, certainly: the special mood so characteristic of Tarantino. It is something which, as I have mentioned before, many detest, but which allows you, as a viewer, to experience the movie, to watch it memorably even though it is filled with so much violence and disturbing visuals. Although Tarantino got worse in years, this is purely the very best example of his "unspoiled" individual vision. I'm not his fan but this aspect quite impressed me in PULP FICTION - to be able to invite a viewer to something pretty personal, powerful, and thought provoking.
As disgusting as a murder for some, as pleasant as a foot massage for others... a movie on its own though a film like many others but, at the same time, a movie like no other: that's, I think, what best defines PULP FICTION with its strong and weak points