Concrete Playground

Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France.

From the brilliant and bizarre mind of Quentin Tarantino comes the ultimate revenge fantasy. Like the title’s misspelling suggests, Inglourious Basterds takes no heed of reality, turning the history of World War II on its head and serving up some bloodthirsty justice instead. What if Hitler, Goebbels and the entire Nazi elite were to be wiped out during a trip to the cinema? Doesn’t that sound exactly like Tarantino’s personal brand of revenge? The result is of course an entirely self-indulgent film, but one that is infectiously so. 

From its 2 ½ hour running time, with its long, long stretches of dialogue, to its delineated chapters – each with their own aesthetic style – Inglourious Basterds flirts tantalisingly with hubris. This is an auteur’s film; Tarantino even has a character spell out that this is his ‘masterpiece’. And yet his blatant love of cinema elevates the film from an exercise in narcissism to something wonderfully complex and dizzyingly referential. Indeed, an unofficial list of film references found in Inglourious Basterds is impressively long, while Tarantino – clearly unable to help himself – also released a trailer for the German propaganda film Stolz der Nation (Nation’s Pride) that premieres within his movie.

Helping Tarantino bring his intractable fantasy to life is a remarkable cast of characters. Christoph Waltz’s astounding performance as “the Jew Hunter” is worth the price of admission alone, though Melanie Laurent’s revenge-fuelled cinema owner and Michael Fassbender as a British film critic turned commando are similar stand-outs. Brad Pitt’s Lt. Aldo Raine is pure, hilarious caricature, and probably as much fun to watch as it was to create. 

Inglourious Basterds may have a fairytale opening, and even a Cinderella slipper scene, but this blood stained love letter to cinema shows the Brothers Grimm ain’t got nothing on Tarantino.