wayback wednesday: INGLORIOUS BASTERDS

It has been a while since I wrote about a movie because nothing currently in theatres interests me enough… But. I was recently challenged to watch Inglorious Basterds, and write about it, so here is my first “throwback” post. It may, or may not, be my last.

 

I first watched Inglorious Basterds years ago, and I don’t remember what I thought about it, but I probably thought it was pretty good. When I watched it, though, I wasn’t into movies as much as I am now. I’ve been into movies since I watched Inception. By ‘into movies’ I mean, I can tell when a movie is actually good, and when it’s actually bad, hence why I do write ups on them sometimes. Anyways, I watched Inglorious Basterds yesterday, and then I watched it again this morning.

This movie hit theatres almost a decade ago so I might not care about spoiling it.

First of all, if you’re sensitive to anything this movie is not for you. Inglorious Basterds takes place in World War II era France, 1944 to be specific, and it’s about a foolish group of Jewish American soldiers, led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine, who land in France for one mission, and one mission only: mercilessly killing nazi’s. In between the Basterds story, the movie also follows the story of Shosanna, a Jewish girl who’s family was ruthlessly killed right before her eyes 4 years before the main plot of the movie takes place by Colonel Hans Landa, the ‘Jew hunter’, who’s role is self explanatory. Shosanna owns a movie theatre that she claimed belonged to her Aunt and Uncle who passed away. I say ‘claimed’ because she’s a Jew living in a nazi occupied France, she’s obviously at great risk. Shosanna has been living under the name ‘Emmanuelle Mimieux’, the most French name she could think of. SPOILER ALERT: in the end, practically everyone dies. But that’s expected from a Quentin Tarantino film.

Now that I’ve seen Inglorious Basterds back to back days, I can safely say that it was a fantastic far fetched film. It’s one of those movies that would get someone into movies because of how well done it was. That summary was literally what the movie was about, but Inglorious Basterds is a dive into the imagination of a creative genius, Quentin Tarantino, and his idea of how Hitler was killed. Imagine Seal Team 6‘s mission to kill Osama in Zero Dark Thirty; the Basterds are Seal Team 6, Shosanna is Maya, and obviously Hitler is Osama. The movie was broken down into 5 chapters, and they all led up perfectly to the end when Hitler was killed. (There’s a little more after that).

I say Inglorious Basterds is one of those movies that’s actually sensational, not only because of the plot, but because of all the artistry involved; the camera work, the direction, the writing, the use of music. Exceptional, it really impressed me.

Throughout the movie the camera work was stunning, the way it dialed in on certain details, the way it rotated around a room, and how it focused in on faces, and moved along with whoever was talking. Wow.

Of course, me being a quote, unquote “writer”, my favorite part was the writing, and I was glad to see that Quentin wrote it, too. Each chapter of Inglorious Basterds was like one scene and in those scenes the characters had such important conversations that were incredibly tense and the way that the back and forth’s went was special, how he could create tension but all the characters were talking as if it were a regular chat. Tarantino was also clever by making all the conversations connected by the end.

The music, or “score”, was also used impeccably. From the first music heard in the beginning of Chapter 1, you can tell that the entire movie wasn’t serious at all, even during scenes where there was supposed to be tension. It was all a joke; a parody of how Hitler was killed, that’s what Inglorious Basterds is. Another example would be how the music would be playing very intensely then cut off abruptly with the scene, which would also cut off abruptly, then that scene would pick up right where it left off, and so would the music. Unreal.

All that, combined with the plot, made this movie, I’d say a 9/10. Usually when I watch movies, I try to find metaphors for how I can become better; I try to see how I can relate to it. I couldn’t really find anything, so that’s why it’s not a 10/10 for me. A quote that stood out to me the most, though, out of all the great ones, was:

Donny Donowitz: “When I kill that guy, you got 30 feet to get to that guy. Can you do it?”

Omar Ulmer: “I have to.”

Pretty much.

I’d say it was called Inglorious Basterds because, realistically, since they are Jewish during World War II they probably are bastards to begin with. They’re Inglorious because, just like being infamous, they’re not glorious for a reason worth bragging about to anyone but themselves. And like I said in the first summary, they’re foolish; they don’t know how to spell “Bastards” so they spelled it “Basterds”, but it’s not like they had a dictionary handy when thinking of their squad name anyways.

Inglorious Basterds stars Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, and Mélanie Laurent. It is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson. B.J Novak from The Office is in it, too. It was written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, whose next movie, called ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD, is supposed to feature my favorite actor Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie. And now that I think about it, I wonder how Tarantino would make a movie about how Osama was killed.