I've never had a lot of time for films. I like them, sure, but they're not my art form of preference. I mean, if there's a toss up between a movie, a new album or a book, the movie would come a distant third. Imagine my amazement then, when I suddenly realised that I've been seeing a lot of movies lately- and in movie halls, no less.
There's something immensely soul destroying about going to a multiplex, paying some insane amount of money for the ticket and then being assaulted by some trash that I definitely wouldn't want to pay 150 bucks for. Anyhoof, no point in cribbing.
And while PVR Saket might be the total opposite of a New Empire or a Lighthouse or a Globe Theatre, at least the seats are nice, so you can doze off if you're not interested in the drivel on screen.
As it turned out, the movie on my screen was Quentin Tarantino's latest, Inglourious Basterds. What can I say? If you're into gratuitous violence, people not acting but pulling faces, and plenty of campy humour, this film's for you. But as war movies go, this one's brilliant for not taking anything too seriously. And there IS something deliciously funny with watching Hitler and Goebbels getting their faces shot in, and beautiful women being strangled to death, which steps over the Hollywood line of never killing the beautiful woman so, well, inglouriously. The main villain, a self styled Nazi "Jew Hunter" called Col Hans Landa, is played with bristling menace and hypnotic suaveness by Christoph Waltz.
Pic: Christoph Waltz is brilliant as the creepy Hans Landa
In fact, his performance pretty much makes the movie. Brad Pitt, as the leader of the Nazi-hunting Basterds pulls a white-trash-American-supremacist-but-anti-Nazi face and sticks to it faithfully for the rest of the film. And anyway, he's there to look good in a smoking jacket- or anything else- and toss off one-liners.
Pic: Brad Pitt pulls faces and carves swastikas on the foreheads of the Nazis that he doesn't kill
The other great thing about the film is that QT unashamedly shows off his nerd-boy love of the cinema. The main plot turns on an old Parisian cinema and its Jewish-victim-with-a-terrible-grudge owner. Then there are references to a hundred different films, dialogues from other movies, situations, sets, what have you. The Nazis are a delightfully wooden and creepy bunch. This is just as well, as a nuanced Nazi is problematic, carrying with it the twin baggage of justification (just doing our job) and general German complicity with the Nazi regime. Then there's the chance that Germans would actually take offence to bits of dialogue which move seamlessly from the Nazi-hating to what might be construed as German-hating. After all, in some places in the film, the American characters boast about killing themselves some Germans. But I guess QT can get away with non-PC, and more power to him for it.
Diane Kruger, in a small but important role, plays up the camp as the actress/double agent Bridgette von Hammersmark beautifully, and the opening scene of Lans Handa in action is perfectly taut with tension and menace.
Pic: Diane Kruger's at her campy best
In the end, QT even has the balls to get Pitt to say the film might be his masterpiece. It definitely isn't, but if you can keep your quibbles aside, its great fun. And another thought: QT can write!
Pic: The QT
But not as much fun as having that noted charlatan, Arindam Chaudhury, sit in the row in front of you, watching the movie with his entourage. Wonder if Planman plans to do a desi version of it anytime soon?
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