Quentin Tarantino said, “Holocaust movies always have Jews as victims. I want to see something different.  Let’s see Germans that are scared of Jews.” Inglourious Basterds is part spaghetti western, part war film and part Jewish revenge fantasy. While it lacks the power and fun of earlier Tarantino efforts like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Kill Bill: Vol. 2, Inglourious Basterds is an entertaining film that raises intriguing issues.

 Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) trains and leads a tough group of Jewish fighters called the Basterds in Nazi occupied France. He instructs them to get a scalp from each Nazi they kill and expects each of them to get one hundred scalps. The group collaborates with double agent and actress Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) in an attempt to take down more Nazis.  High ranking Nazis are enraged by the success of the Basterds.  But Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), nicknamed The Jew Hunter, is on the case.  Meanwhile, Jewish tough girl Shoshana (Mélanie Laurent) is posing as a gentile and operating a cinema. In the opening scene of the film, she narrowly escapes the Jew Hunter’s clutches. Will he recognize her when they meet? Will her plan for revenge be as devastating as the Basterds’ plans? In this universe, will Hitler and his Nazis get what they deserve?

This film has much in common with other Tarantino films.  Inglourious Basterds  is divided into chapters with titles. Tarantino is selective with the violence and gore, and the scenes are intense. (I had to close my eyes during the scalping scenes.) The film also has a cartoonish quality. There is no mention of the real world horrors of concentration camps. The Nazis, especially Hitler (Martin Wuttke) and Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) are buffoons. The Basterds perpetrate violence with gleeful relish. One of the Basterds clubs a Nazi to death while doing baseball commentary. But Tarantino infuses the smaller scenes with thick tension. My favorite scene was the opening, between Hans Landa and French farmer Perrier LaPadite (Denis Menochet). Most of the scene is a conversation between the two characters. As he drinks a glass of milk Landa likens Jews to rats and appraises the farmer’s daughters. The tone of his voice, in both French and English, reveals the fierce Nazi beneath the cultured façade.

Brad Pitt swaggers and laughs about killing Nazis (he pronounces it Nat-sees), and is right for the role. Mélanie Laurent is sincere and strong, and her Shoshana is the character everyone roots for, as she quietly plots her revenge. For me, the star of this film is Christoph Waltz. His Col. Landa is not a buffoon, but a terrifyingly calm monster. He is faultlessly polite one moment and murderous in the next. He pretends to flirt with actress Bridget von Hammersmark, but she knows he is threatening her. He insists that Shoshana eat strudel with him and then makes veiled threats while grinding his cigarette into the whipped cream. I found these scenes to be more potent that the violent ones.

The film’s climax takes place in a cinema showing a Nazi propaganda film. This film within a film is important to the plot and the point of Inglourious Basterds. The Basterds are brutal and delight in killing Nazis. Do we in the audience root for the brutal Basterds because they have righteousness on their side? Is changing the facts of a horrific event for entertainment purposes profane, or do we like seeing Jews kill the Nazis with force and gusto? I am not really sure, but there is something satisfying about Tarantino’s revisionist history.  When Aldo carves a swastika in the Nazis that he lets live, after asking them if they will take off the uniform when they return home, the act has a certain justice. After one such carving Brad Pitt looks at the camera and declares, “This just might be my masterpiece.” No, Mr. Tarantino, it is not. But Inglourious Basterds is entertaining, and it gave me something to ponder.

Inglourious Basterds.  Directed by Quentin Tarantino. Brad Pitt (Lt. Aldo Raine),  Mélanie Laurent (Shoshana Dreyfuss), Christoph Waltz (Col. Hans Landa), Diane Kruger (Bridget von Hammersmark), Denis Menochet (Perrier LaPadite), Sylvester Groth (Goebbels) and  Martin Wuttke (Hitler).  The Weinstein Company, 2009.

 

Gail sees a movie appears every Wednesday.

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