Inglorious Basterd
Each year, on the 6th of January, children wake up to a pile of shiny, colourfully-wrapped boxes which they tear open to reveal the toys inside. In many cases, the entire day is spent discovering that the toys are simply too complicated to truly be fun. Sometimes, the toys have already been broken before the day is over. Any gift that survives a month lies forgotten among other toys of varying size and provenance, which the children, like true Dr Frankensteins, will mix and match as they play. Tarantino is one of these children; he is happy to twist his toys around, to disembowel his dolls and to create impossible narratives that, if we are being sympathetic, are seemingly born from the ingenuity of a child’s mind, or, if we choose to be slightly more cynical, from the absolute lack of judgement and reference points displayed by the average North American citizen. His films are sinking under the weight of his excesses and lack of self-criticism, which may work with children’s toys, but serve no purpose in the work of a filmmaker.
It is worth being straightforward: the only interpretation which can sustain and justify the existence of Inglorious Basterds is to see it as an esperpento, a parody of the great historical productions made first by Hollywood, and later by the industries that imitate the American Mecca of the film world. These films, we must remind ourselves, display a complete lack of reverence for history as well as an astounding amount of self-indulgence. Tarantino’s filmography has never ceased to take inspiration from drive-in and video-store fast food cinema, in the sense that he always returns to them and extols their virtues. Examples of this can be seen throughout his career: the low-budget heist film Reservoir Dogs, the Blaxploitaion-inspired Jackie Brown, the martial arts films he reinterpreted with Kill Bill and, as is the case here, the new reading of Macaroni Combat films –close relatives of the Spaghetti Western. However, while the lack of pretension of these genres, used as templates for his films, always pleased film fans, Tarantino’s movies fail. They are drenched in their own style of pretension, and, on top of that, they convey a sense of great vacuousness. Christoph Waltz’s excellent performance, as well as the tension of the first scene, is not enough to sustain a film, and Tarantino’s highly-praised dialogue comes off as fake and lustreless throughout. Much, much, much ado, about absolutely nothing.
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