By Brandi Shuler
Quentin Tarantino is known as the best director to combine dark humor with random bursts of violence, as well as amazing, natural dialogue that keeps his audience engaged. In Inglourious Basterds, he brings some history into the mix to give us an entertaining retelling of World War II.
I must note how good Christoph Waltz is in pure language skills. Compared to my humble American ears, his ability to go from English to French to German and even Italian is unparalleled. Outside of this, every single nationality presented throughout the film is speaking their own language, and not many films stay true to that detail. Many movies make it easier for their audience to understand by making everyone speak the same language, typically English. Quentin Tarantino, however, went above and beyond to use language not only as a way to stay true to nationalities but also used it as a storytelling device. In certain scenes, subtitles are not present despite two people not speaking English in order to make the audience guess what they are saying or to make the audience just as confused as one character in the scene.
I absolutely love the storytelling throughout the movie and its ability to show every character’s perspective of the war through their dialogue and actions so accurately. In that fashion, the director puts away the dramatization of history, but not entirely. He makes sure to add anticipation where it is needed to make his audience tense for the characters and tense from the random bursts of violence he is known for. This is a war movie, though, so the violence is basically necessary.
Lately, Inglourious Basterds have gained popularity on social media due to its ability to be turned towards humor. Christoph Waltz’s whole performance and Brad Pitt’s quote, “I don’t blame you, damn good deal!” have made their way around Instagram and TikTok as memes. Even the movie itself has some dark humor in it.
I would give this movie a 4/5-star rating because of its wonderful storytelling and writing. I like the director’s way of writing dialogue, not only for this movie but for others as well, like Pulp Fiction. I could not possibly give it a five-star rating, however, because of the historical inaccuracies; almost none of this movie actually happened, and it is not based on a true story. Despite this, still enjoy Inglorious Basterds during your next movie night!
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