I've been mulling on Inglourious Basterds since seeing it with M in the wee hours of Saturday evening.
It's the first movie in a long time that I've walked away from feeling mildly queasy, although in retrospect that could have been the green onion cakes that we snuck into the theatre, much to the likely olfactory dismay of our neighbours - they were grease personified, but delicious. (and definitely not the wisest thing to eat around 11 PM.)
Tarantino is Tarantino - he pushes buttons and envelopes with equal alacrity, and though my face might've been buried in M's shoulder for some of the more gratuitous scenes, at the root of it all I can say I liked the movie. But not without caveats.
The sets/settings were gorgeous, the costumes were great - I'm hunting down some of Diane Kruger's character's shoes at my next opportunity - the soundtrack fantastic (the Morricone, classic; the Bowie shivery and haunting and, like the scene it plays in, impossible to turn from.) Plus, Aldo Raine's accent induced giggles and it looked like Brad Pitt looked like he was having a great time in the role.
But I'm a story girl, and as the story goes - oh, it could've been stronger. I could have done without the scalpings, but keeping them as a plot point and graphic element proved an interesting (and knowing Tarantino, absolutely deliberate) counterpoint to the sniper film-within-the-film; we, as the audience, are observing an audience and their reaction to horrific violence, and judging them in that scene for their laughter and acceptance of the violence - but we too are viewers. We are witnesses, in our own way, to both the shootings and the scalpings. How we react to the movie(s) themselves is just as telling.
♥ music of the moment : young lions
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2 comments:
I was quite disturbed at the scalping scenes and the end shoot out. Aside from that, it's nothing worse than what you'd see on prime time television. So I don't feel offended at all.
What made the movie was the script. And what a script it was. I tend to dislike Tarantino's movies but I fell in love with the comedy of Inglorious Basterds. Lom-bar-di.
It's great seeing you blog again. It's been a while. Or am I just subscribed to the wrong feeds?
I was kind of buried in M's shoulder after the first scalping scene; agreed, that beyond that and the final shootout (though the one in the bar was also exceptional), it didn't go much past the TV lines.
It *was* a good script - Tarantino works well at blending genres until you're not sure what you're watching - historical reinvention? pastiche? war film? - and can only dub it 'Tarantino.' And I suppose you can always wish for plot aspects to be fleshed out further, but it's already a long movie. (So.)
(And you're subscribed right - I've just been AFK a lot lately. ^^ It's good to be back!)
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