It has been a long time since a film has made me so uncomfortable, and yet simultaneously so awe-struck and impressed... in fact the only thing comparable was the first time I saw Eraserhead. Unlike Tarantino's other work, Basterds is not a "fun" movie - or not as fun, anyway - and it makes Kill Bill look family-friendly. I squirmed, I felt ill, I laughed at things I really shouldn't have, and I'm almost ashamed to admit I enjoyed it. At the same time, it was genius. I'm glad he had the courage to make it, and I'm glad I saw it in the theatre without anyone spoiling it. Well worth watching, provided you like it when films challenge you. This one will.
It's not, as Lt Raines claims it is, his masterpiece. IMHO, it may even be his weakest work, the only film of his that I don't feel the need to own. Then again, liking his films more with every viewing is par for the course - and it's not the first Tarantino film that seemed shocking on first viewing, either. It's also a film that's guaranteed to be viewed entirely differently on second watching.
Comparing it to work by other artists... I didn't really care for The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, but I love Going After Cacciato , so perhaps it makes sense that I'm so conflicted over this.
Like Cacciato, (and Cacciato's sister-short-story, How To Tell A True War Story), you know this tale is fictional, fantastically so, yet it really catches a truthful and accurate feel of the special kind of hell that is war. Depictions of the reality of war are rare in cinema - war's ugly, not heroic, and films avoid that reality. Even films that attempt to do justice to that concept (Saving Private Ryan, for example), tend to fall prey to overblown notions of heroism and morality, both of which are frequently absent in a war zone. In Basterds, you see good men doing very bad things, and sometimes you even see very bad men doing good things. You also see crazy coincidences that are completely unbelievable, yet are exactly like the type of crazy coincidences that actually happen in the real world, especially in the haze of combat. The events in this film didn't happen, but could have. In this way it's unlike most war movies, which didn't happen, and are far too sanitary to have ever happened, either.
Like Good/Bad/Ugly, the film has plenty of slow artful simmer, juxtaposed close-ups and long shots, and strong musical choices. Basterds really is a Sergio Leone Western in WWII clothing - it uses the same tropes, but with Nazis instead of cowboy bandits. As in Leone's "man with no name" trilogy, there's extremely few characters you can actually like. They're basterds, every one of them.
Watching this film was delicious agony. Any Tarantino film is going to have a few things that make you uncomfortable. His films are packed with violence and tasteless racial epithets. It's only logical that's going to get more pronounced in a film with Nazis - they are genocidal racists, after all, an army of repugnant butchers, the ultimate villains.
In Reservoir Dogs, a man is tortured. But he's at least tortured by a "bad guy". You feel disgust and outrage, even while you're bopping along to Stuck In The Middle With You. You enjoy the scene, but despise the character at the heart of it. That was hard to swallow the first time I saw it. Inglourious Basterds is like that scene, blown up into a whole movie, and then it goes a step further...
Here, the "heroes" are torturers. Nazis are the ultimate villains, and it always feels good to see them get their comeuppance, or at least it always has in the past. Here they die in some ugly, brutal ways, at the hands of the heroes. If this film had come out 10 years ago, when torture was an abstract fantasy element that only happens in movies, I don't think I'd feel so conflicted. Post Abu Ghraib, it's just not acceptable to me for the hero to torture anyone - not even Nazis.
At the same time, this is a much healthier and more honest way of examining WWII than, say, what happens in an Indiana Jones film. In a Jones movie, the Nazis are bad just because of the uniform. We never really see the rank and file being villains, and the death of each human being in that uniform has no emotional weight. We can cheer as they die, without ever stopping to consider that a _human_ just died. In Basterds, on the other hand, the Nazis do really evil things. While the madness and villainy of their leadership is center stage, the complicity of the common man is starkly depicted as well. We can't deny they deserve what happens to them. They really got it coming, and we want them to be punished. At the same time, we get to see that they are most definitely human - they have lives beyond their uniforms, and some at least have a few redeeming qualities. Which demands the question - do we really want to see them get their comeuppance in such a brutal and ferociously honest way? The conclusion I came to by film's end was not just "yes", but "Hell, Yes!" - and that unsettles me.
And, if anything, recent history has shown us that, given official sanction to do so, otherwise good men will turn into monsters for their countries. So, distasteful as those elements of Basterds are, they are completely believable. As honest and truthful as they are gratuitous.
Lastly, it's worth mentioning that Inglourious Basterds has some classic Tarantino fun as well - references to various films, campy moments, post-modern flourishes, on-screen chapter titles, etc. - but to a slightly lesser degree than in Kill Bill. Time is also handled far more linearly in Basterds than in any other Tarantino-directed film. All of this may, possibly, be a contributing factor in my not liking it as much. In Kill Bill, the flourishes were more numerous, and emphasized the theme of the film. In Pulp Fiction, they were more subtle. In Basterds, they seemed less organic than either of those, and stand in contrast to the primary theme. If he'd just stuck to Western and War Movie iconography, and down-played the post-modern campiness, it _may_ have been a more cohesive film.
Even with these caveats and complaints, I'd still give Inglourious Basterds 4 out of 5 stars. It was less comfortable than his other work, but no less artistic. He took big risks in this artwork, most of which really paid off, and a few that didn't. I am impressed by the effort and intent.
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