My Take on "Inglorious Basterds"

"A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a war story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil... You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you."

I’d be very curious to know what writer/Vietnam War Vet, Tim O’Brien (who penned the quote above) thinks of the new Tarantino film, “Inglorious Basterds.”  A film that I think I’m now willing to admit was a highly entertaining cinematic accomplishment for a guy who in my honest opinion has made a series of largely forgettable movies.  Nonetheless it was an accomplishment that disturbed and upset me.  I saw the film last night out of curiosity from the wide agreement among friends and film critics that it was a good movie, despite a trailer that to me looked just plain stupid.  In the midst of it, it was no doubt fun at times, funny at other times, full of gore, and action and adventure and all of the elements that will typically get your heart beating a little quicker… But all of it through a weird combination of equal parts excitement and repulsion that ultimately left me feeling a little distraught.

A series of one-dimensional characters get dropped into Nazi-controlled France to kill, maim, torture, and scalp Nazis.  Why?  Because Nazis are bad guys.  Why are they bad guys?  Because they kill, maim, torture, and scalp Jews.  I guess that concept right there is enough for me to raise an eyebrow… But okay okay okay I get it.  It’s a movie from a guy obsessed with bad movies about one dimensional characters obsessed with sex violence and gore and you’re not suppose to think about it too much, and YES ultimately it exists to satiate that desire for justice that maybe we feel wasn’t attained when Hitler and his lackeys committed suicide in a bunker, so please Aaron stop harshing our mellow and let us have two and a half hours of history rewritten to allow for brutally executed justice.  I get it; I remember in fifth grade being obsessed with stories of the Holocaust and I can’t tell you how many times I fantasized about being Hitler’s executioner. 

 

But immediately upon viewing Basterds, I could only think about how odd it is for modern Americans to simplify evil to this embarrassing degree.  So much so that the torture has actually found itself in the modern American lexicon, AND it’s actually being debated as a formidable method of dealing with and interrogating suspected Terrorists.  So, coming out of it I found “Inglorious Basterds,” as a movie about war to be another “Hooray America, we defeated evil because, we’re awesome, and it’s okay to do this because they’re evil,  we know this because of the geographical region they come from, trust me just don’t ask a Native American what they think.”  At the risk of reverting to dry, typical liberal talking points, I will say that this is the kind of movie I’d expect conservative trolls like Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh to tout as a triumphant story of truth, justice, and the American way, despite the fact that the actions of one are seemingly no different than the actions of the other. BLAH! Case closed, I’m leaving the movie theater to spend three hours on the internet reading reviews of the movie I just then decided was a horrible piece of garbage.

….But then I thought some more.  And I considered the quote stated above… particularly the part about a true war story as being an uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.  I thought of the villainous character, “The Jew Hunter” which was performed FANTASTICALLY.  It was like Chris Nolan’s The Joker, with a Nazi uniform on; a man who maybe all but twice is seen with a bright, sadistic, and terrifying smile on his face.  It was a truly haunting image.  And of course Eli Roth’s “The Bear Jew” on the other side, equally terrifying at times, with no color in his eyes, soulless, in the way a soldier has been marred by terrible visions of death doom and destruction.  So I suppose in some way (although maybe in a different way from what Tim O’Brien is talking about) “Inglorious Basterds” is that uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil… a true? War story?... Well certainly not…. I don’t know… maybe… I’m going to have think about it.

BUT as perhaps a movie about war movies, something I didn’t even really consider until it sank in a little bit, maybe Tarantino was on to something.  Most of the movie takes place in a movie theater.  The main explosive used to decimate a movie theater full of Nazis is the nitrate from old film prints.  I’ve already had one guy tell me I’m thinking too hard on it but NO they literally burnt a huge mound of film in order to kill a theater full of Nazis.  That’s not over thinking it, that’s a reasonable metaphor to draw, maybe about sensationalism, the kind of movies Tarantino makes, etc.  Not only that, but I almost found myself laughing from the great wonderful irony of being in a theater of young hip urban dwellers laughing maniacally at the death of a theater full of unrepentant, uncompromised, and unquestioning Nazi drones who are in turn laughing maniacally at a propaganda film about a soldier who decimates a whole platoon of ally soldiers.  I couldn’t help but think how hard Quentin Tarantino (the quintessential pop filmmaker if there ever was one) might have been laughing at us; the generation bred to soak in this kind of maniacal sensation (Whoa… I think I might have turned 55 yesterday).

So in the end I haven’t decided on anything.  I think it’s important to note that this film, 24 hours later still has me thinking, wrestling, and dealing, and that alone makes me wonder what this dude has done… A guy whose movies I certainly enjoyed but all the same I never thought of as much more than 2 hours of simple escapism.  Maybe, this really was his masterpiece?  Ebert wrote a good review where he said he liked it but ultimately thought a proper judgment could be made after a second viewing.  I think that’s true, but I don’t know if I’m up for a second viewing… Not anytime soon.

Nonetheless, since I’ve seen it I’ve certainly kicked it up from a “sell” to a “don’t buy.”