Cannes'09 Diary: Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds review

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Inglourious Basterds is vintage Quentin Tarantino, the one who made gore look so good and almost poetic in Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. The master of bloody revenge drama is at his best in this film that had its world premiere at the 62^nd Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday - and left it rocking with its impact.

A simplistic storyline on more than one set of people seeking to settle their scores against Hitler-led Third Reich in their own ways makes the film easily approachable by anyone. And Tarantino's expertise is handling violence makes even the bloodiest scenes look digestible here.

The film works because of several reasons, most important of them being its fast pace to match its thriller mode with the backdrop of the German occupation of France during the Second World War. Also, Tarantino does not compromise on the truthfulness of his characters - be it their language, gestures (there is one scene where one of the Basterds masquerading as a Gestapo officer gets caught because he makes an incorrect body gesture) or cultural moorings, everything is put as the way it is. The characters speak the languages they speak in (English/French/German) and even the actors were chosen in a way so that they can speak their mother tongues in the film.
So, Pitt (as Lt Aldo Raine, the head of the Basterds) speaks with his American accent, Melanie Laurent (as Shosanna, the revenge-seeking Jewish girl), speaks French, Daniel Bruhl (as cinema-loving German war hero Fredrick Zoller) speaks German, and a Canadian character speaks, well, presumably Canadian English (Pitt joked at the press conference that he had spoken British English). But the one actor who towers over everyone else is Chritoph Waltz, who plays multilingual and crafty Gestapo intelligence officer Col Hans Landa. This is one actor, and one performance, which you will remember for a long, long time to come.

Tarantino has said this film is his tribute to both Spaghetti Westerns and World War II movies, and it has motifs from both genres. For example, the brilliant background score, as well as the opening credits score, heavily relies on the guitar, the opening score reminding you of those lovely theme scores from numerous Westerns starring Clint Eastwood.

The pace of the film is fast and furious, perfectly matching the requirements of the storyline, and the way Tarantino sets up the finale of each of his chapters in the multi-chapter film is something that is outstanding.
Inglourious Basterds might or might not find favour with the Competition Jury here, but it looks like it will scorch the Box Offices all over the world. If it does not, that will be a major surprise.