It is a movie I'd been curious about from the first trailer that hit the airwaves - "Inglourious Basterds", written and directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Brad Pitt. The trailers for the movie were characteristically indefinite, giving the would-be-movie goer a slight taste and tease for what the movie actually portends. My only impression what was Madison Avenue wanted me to see and the "rest of the story" was left to my imagination. At the time of its release in 2009, I was too timid to watch the movie, but over the past year, and inspired the the library rental fee of only $.25 cents, I gathered up my courage, stepped outside of my comfort zone and rented the movie.
Quentin Tarantino has a well-deserved reputation for being a master of suspense, second only, perhaps, to the venerable Alfred Hitchcock. Knowing a bit about Tarantino's "Kill Bill" movies, I wasn't eager to watch "Inglourious Basterds", but, as I said, my curiosity got the better of me.
What a fascinating movie. At once I was repelled, repulsed, yet riveted by Tarantino's ability to combine the macabre with a little comic relief, bound tightly together with a constant sense of impending doom, coupled with continuing brutality and violence. Tarantino does not disappoint, by the way. Yet, in the context of the movie, I found that I was troublingly (my word) comfortable with the violence, perhaps because of my knowledge of historical events. My ability to rationalize the human-to-human violence in "Inglourious Basterds" still bothers me but my discomfort is over-shadowed by my awe of what another human being can conjure up. Tarantino's imagination must never stop, nor sleep. Perhaps he doesn't sleep, either. I'd love to know what he was like in junior and senior high school.
The movie is ultra violent but if you want to see what all of the movie buzz was about and why the actor, Christoph Watlz received an Acdemy Award for Best Supporting Actor, then rent this movie. Just be prepared to spend the entire two hours and thirty-three minutes on the edge of your chair. This movie is not kid-friendly.
Ancora imparo
