Inglourious Basterds (5 Stars)

The world according to Quentin Tarantino is better than the real world. In Tarantino's world the last thing Hitler saw was the face of a laughing Jewish woman. In the real world he died in or just outside a cold bunker. Tarantino gave him a sexier death. I'd like the last thing I see to be a laughing woman, Jewish or not.

It's a fairy tale, not meant to represent the truth. It opens with the words "Once upon a time in Nazi-occupied France". Fairy tales have happy endings. The big bad monster dies, and they don't come bigger or badder than Adolf Hitler.

The film shows two unconnected plots to kill Hitler. The one is a big operation ordered by Winston Churchill, carried out by the Jewish American squadron called the Basterds. The other is a solo effort by a Jewess who wants revenge for the death of her family. I know that Hitler killed six million Jews, but that's just a number. A number on a piece of paper is abstract, it means nothing. What makes it personal is if Hitler and his followers kill just one person that you know, a family member or a friend. That's what spurs revenge. That's what makes Shosanna Dreyfus aka Emanuelle Mimieux laugh.

Hitler's death takes place in a cinema. This is no coincidence. For Quentin Tarantino films are important, and cinemas are important as the place where films are shown. He loves films, and he openly displays his nostalgia for old films.

This was the film that helped Daniel Brühl make his breakthrough into Hollywood. He'd already been a successful German actor for ten years, but this is the film that made him well known internationally.

Martin Wuttke was primarily a stage actor in Germany, but since appearing as Adolf Hitler in "Inglourious Basterds" he's been cast in a string of American films.

Brad Pitt is the film's anti-hero. He's one of the good guys, but he's so mean in carrying out justice that he makes the audience shudder. His aim isn't primarily to win the war, it's to kill Nazis. For him, anybody wearing a German uniform isn't a human being, he's a Nazi, and he has to die. Obviously, this attitude is completely wrong. The vast majority of the German soldiers didn't put on uniforms because they were Nazis, they put on uniforms because they were conscripted. But it's just a film. The characters aren't meant to be perfect.

Christoph Waltz won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor, but anyone who's seen the film knows that he was really the Leading Actor. Despite having less screen time, Brad Pitt was named as the Leading Actor for two reasons:

1. He's more famous than Christoph Waltz.

2. Bad guys aren't usually the Leading Actor.

But look... isn't that a foot rising up Christoph Waltz's jacket towards his medals?

Yes, it's Diane Kruger's foot. I promised you that I would point out the bare feet in Quentin Tarantino's films.

Christoph Waltz gets to put a shoe on Diane Kruger's foot. Most actors work for 50 years and never get a chance like that.

Here are both of her feet, one of them in a plaster cast.

Before anyone accuses me of having a foot fetish, no, it isn't true. All I'm doing is acknowledging Quentin Tarantino's foot fetish. I have many fetishes, too many to list, but a foot fetish isn't one of them. I would rather look at Diane Kruger's face than her feet. She's beautiful, isn't she?

I definitely have a Sitting-In-The-Cinema-Watching-A-Laughing-Woman-Telling-Me-I'm-Going-To-Die fetish. That's a good idea for my blog. I should have a Fetish Of The Day feature. All year long!

This is probably Quentin Tarantino's best film. It's difficult to say. Every time I watch it I'm stunned, like I'm watching it for the first time. My definition of a good film is that I want to watch it at least three times. Today I watched "Inglourious Basterds" for the seventh time, and I still want to watch it again. That makes it better than good.

Success Rate:  + 2.6

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