Inglourious Basterds

With spelling like this I am surprised that tarantino can manage to spell his own, quite complicated, name.

As a pacifist my conscious mind was telling me throughout that I should abhor the flagrant aestheticism of violence, the pro-America depiction of the war when in actuality they trotted along at the end to give the Jerrys and their allies (most notably the Japanese) two fingers for Pearl Harbor. However, I loved it. As anyone who has seen the end will know, Tarantino was clearly not going for historical accuracy. And the film was gloriously made.

After his last few box office flops, one might expect Quent's newest endeavour to fall flat also, but from the opening titles, and it's great spaghetti-western-esque theme music given a smartly-executed French twist, it was clear that he was back in the driving seat, his trademarks boisterously pervading the entire film. It has all the wit that he is famous for, but he has filled the film with it - bringing the film to border almost on black comedy. Farcical elements such as Lande's pipe in the opening scene, the film divided into 'chapters' and, of course, the darkly comic and gratuitous violence reminiscent of Reservoir Dogs' famous 'ear' scene.

But in attention to detail the director has surpassed himself: in terms of characterisation, Lande is made both sympathetic ans pseudo-admirable through his fierce intelligence and culture evocative of Hannibal Lecter, but also grotesque through his huge aforementioned pipe and the exaggeration of his eating and drinking noises.

Brad Pitt offers a surprisingly novel performance as 'Apache Leader' of the Basterds, with cartoonish acting of the (rather cartoonish) character, yet with enough pathos to keep viewers from writing him off as a dickhead.

More of a fun film than a moving war epic, and more arthouse than fun film, this big-budget film is quirky enough to ostracise the brainless mainstreamers and intelligent enough to give the aspiring flaneur something to get his teeth into, with the added benefit of masquerading as light entertainment.

It's just a great film that, while it may be too violent for some and too inaccurate for others, does offer the audence a gripping two-hours with the intellectual peas hidden beneath the laugh-a-minute mashed potato. Only the most stubborn or stupid child could push their plate away.

Go see it in a cinema while it's on: this is a film made for the big screen and that is where it should be viewed. Why go to the zoo when you can go on safari?

Yours over-analogously,

Robert