Inglourious Basterds: A Fantasy Piece

Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is an incredible work of fantasy and wish fulfillment. Brutally killing Nazis is probably a common fantasy (there is an important distinction between "Nazis" and "Germans", by the way), and the trailer promised us plenty of war, gore, and death. After I saw the movie, I was surprised by how few scenes of fighting actually appear in the movie. Don't get me wrong, when the film gets violent, it gets gloriously violent, but the movie is not the bloodbath the trailers promised. Rather, it is a wonderful suspense film peppered with scenes of over-the-top violence leading to one of the greatest wish-fulling scenes in recent history. Spoilers below.

The titular "basterds" are a group of nine soldiers serving in the US army, eight of whom are Jewish. Lt. Aldo Raine is the non-Jewish commander of the unit; his job is to lead his Jewish men deep behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied France, where they will mercilessly and wantonly kill as many Nazis as they can find. Noteworthy basterds include Donny Donowitz, also known as the Bear Jew, who has a penchant for beating Nazis to death with a baseball bat, and Hugo Stiglitz, a psychotic former Nazi officer who turned on his countrymen and killed many Nazi officers before being recruited by the basterds. The trailer made the movie seem like it would follow the basterds as they cut a bloody swath across France, but in fact, the number of scenes of them brutally attacking the Nazis is rather small. Instead, we mainly hear about their exploits from third parties, including Adolf Hiter. That is because there is a much larger story in motion.

A few months before the basterds get to Europe, an SS officer named Hans Landa arrived at a French dairy farm looking for Jews in hiding. Landa, known as the Jew Hunter for his incredible proficiency at finding Jews, is probably the film's most compelling character. In the first scene, he proves himself to be charming, self-aware, soulless, and a creature of contradictions, but more on that in a minute. Using a both his charm and terror-inspiring ways, he gets the dairy farmer to give up the Jews he is hiding, but he allows one of them, the teenage Shosanna, to get away.

Years later, after the basterds established a name for themselves, Shosanna took on an assumed name and began operating a theater. One night, a Nazi officer introduced himself to her; he was immediately smitten with her (not realizing she was a Jew, and therefore the equivalent of a rat in his eyes), but she wanted nothing to do with him. He later revealed that he was a war hero after single-handedly killing almost 300 American soldiers over the course of 3 days while stuck in a bell tower (or so Joseph Goebbels' film about him would have us believe). Goebbels made a film about his exploits and planned to have it premiere in Paris. Zoller, the officer, in an effort to get closer to Shosanna, convinced Goebbels to have the premiere at Shosanna's theater.

And that is where the plot starts to come together. Hitler, Goebbels, and two other top Nazi administrators will be in attendance at the premiere, and this fact does not escape the Allies or Shosanna. Both parties separately form a plan to blow up the theater in an effort to end the war in Europe. What we are shown, though, is not a fight to get to this fateful night, but a series of deceptions. Most scenes in the film, both before and after the pivotal change of theater venue, involve suspense as we watch characters with secrets interact with characters who would kill upon learning such secrets. One of my favorite scenes was in an underground tavern; two of the basterds and a British soldier met up with a German actress who wanted to defect. Unfortunately, a group of Nazi enlisted men, and one officer, chose the same spot to spend a drunken night celebrating the birth of a sergeant's son. The basterds try to keep a low profile, but when the major joins their table, they cannot get him to leave. Even though the major is very shrewd, he believes all of the basterds' lies. Ironically, their cover is blown not by any lie they tell, but by a simple hand gesture.

Then there is Landa. He acts as a kind of detective for the Nazis, seeking out Jews, traitors, and other enemies of the state. He is feared not because he is physically imposing, but because he is incredibly manipulative and terror-inducing. He wields a lot of power and can make life very difficult for people who stand in his way. Or he can end the lives of such people if he so chooses. As I said, he is extremely charming, but also chillingly merciless. This is just one of his many contradictions; the blatant contradiction involves his nickname; he starts the film utterly relishing the name "Jew Hunter", but ends the film despising it. He got the name because he was so adept at capturing Jews, which he attributes to his ability to "think like a Jew"; Nazi propaganda explained that Jews are like rats, but unlike the rest of the Nazi party, he saw this designation as almost a compliment (emphasis on almost). Rats, he said, are survivors. They are creatures that persevere in the face of terrible opposition, much of which is unjustly given. After all, he explains that squirrels are just as much rodents as rats, but no one feels the same way about squirrels as they do about rats. I interpreted this to mean that Landa doesn't really believe that Jews are enemies of the state. He just likes that he has state license to hurt people. Landa also seems to subscribe to the idea of Germans as the master race, but he continuously uses (incorrectly) English and American proverbs ("That's a bingo!"), and when he is willing to sell out the Third Reich in exchange for American prestige. Part of this probably has to do with self-preservation, but his list of demands for allowing the basterds' plan to kill Hitler and co. seemed very well thought-out. He asked for recognition in planning the mission, Congressional Medals of Honor for himself and all the basterds, and a home on Nantucket Island.

Although Landa was the focal point of the contradictions, I believe that the entire movie can be examined through that lens. Lt. Raine's opening speech to his men talks about Nazis have no humanity, which certainly isn't too much of a stretch for the high officers (people like Hitler and Goebbels are often used as examples of absolutes). Yet the basterds show no humanity to the Nazi soldiers they kill, scalp, and mutilate. Even when they leave a soldier alive, they mark his forehead with a swastika to ensure that everyone will always know the person was a Nazi. People like Hitler and his top officials, as well as most of the German army, likely deserved what they got from the basterds. And yet, some soldiers in Nazi Germany fought because they had no choice. Still, I'm not going to feel too broken up over the death of a Nazi soldier because they knew that they were committing war crimes by invading countries and breaking treaties (many infantrymen were unaware of the atrocities happening in the concentration camps). But the basterds showed just as much hatred, cruelty, and inhumanity back to the Nazis (so I guess the question is whether this was merited). A few scenes had interesting discussions about black people and their place in the world. Goebbels spoke condescendingly of America's performance in the Olympics by stating that the only reason we received any gold medals was because we used black people. The purpose of the comment was to say that we relied on "inferiority" to get a measure of prestige, yet he was also acknowledging that blacks had skills that whites did not have. Without meaning to, he faulted his own race's athletic ability. Later, in the tavern scene, the Nazi major made a very interesting analysis of King Kong. He pointed out how the film is an allegory for how blacks have been treated in America; whites took Kong from his homeland, put him in chains, and turned him into property, just like what we did to Africans during slavery. The major says this with a sneer, completely ignoring that Nazi Germany not only has similar attitudes about blacks, but is performing their own abominable actions against a certain group of people.

The film ends with a successful operation at the theater. Hitler, Goebbels, and the other leaders of the Third Reich were gloriously killed by the basterds while a macabre film made by Shosanna and her lover plays explains to the audience that the theater is about to burn down. It is an excellent ending to an extremely entertaining film.

Up next: Madness...

District 9: Minority Report

I recently finished reading a book called Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman. At one point, Klosterman referred to science fiction as philosophy for stupid people. I at first took offense to this remark, but while I still see it as a gross oversimplification (and insult), after seeing District 9, I am somewhat rethinking that statement. After all, if Neil Blomkamp wanted to make a movie about apartheid, why didn't he actually make a movie that took place in the time of apartheid? Why did he need to use aliens to enhance the story? Well, for one thing, he wanted to appeal to a different audience than that which would go to a historical movie, and sometimes metaphors can be extremely jarring if people don't initially know what they are getting into.

District 9 is shot as a documentary, detailing the last days of District 9. In the 1980s, an alien spacecraft entered, then became inoperative in, Johannesburg airspace. The South African government, aided by Multi National United (MNU), a powerful corporation, tried to help the aliens get acquainted on Earth. MNU set up what was supposed to be a temporary camp for the aliens to live while various world governments argued over what to do with the aliens in the long-run. Out of fear, the camp was strictly monitored by a military branch of MNU, and it eventually turned into a terrible slum. Fear of the aliens led to hatred of them, and this hatred caused the otherwise peaceful aliens to have to defend themselves from the humans and eventually grow to hate them in return, perpetuating a cycle of distrust between the two races. Eventually, the people of Johannesburg became fed up with the alien "menace" so close to their homes, and demanded that MNU relocate them. District 10 was created 240 km outside of the city; MNU distributed ads to the aliens promising better living conditions, then sent in a low-level operative named Wikus van der Merwe to serve the aliens with eviction notices.

Wikus serves as the focal point of the "documentary"; vague references are made to his "betrayal", and the story follows him from the day of his promotion to one of the last days of District 9. Wikus goes in believing that the inferior (in his eyes) aliens will have no choice but to accept the eviction notices and happily move to an isolated area to live in tents smaller than the tiny shacks they are already living in. Meanwhile, a few aliens, led by one named Christopher Johnson (I'm guessing that, similar to what America did with immigrants at Ellis Island, the South African government gave Anglican and Dutch names to the aliens for easy classification) were putting the finishing touches on some plan, 20 years in the making, involving a mysterious fluid derived from fluid found in alien technology. Wikus discovered the canister containing the fluid, but didn't know its purpose. He accidentally sprayed himself with it, and from that point on, his life went in an entirely different direction.

The audience is led to believe that Christopher's plan was to use the fluid to change the human race into aliens, because Wikus starts to slowly transform into one himself after exposure. Unfortunately for him, in addition to all the immediately imaginable negative effects becoming an alien would have on a person, MNU sees Wikus' situation as one of extreme profit to them. The aliens' technology is extremely powerful, but was engineered to only respond to their own DNA; no human ever successfully fired one of the the aliens' extremely powerful firearms. However, because Wikus' human DNA is melding with and being supplanted by the alien DNA, he achieves the ability to use their weapons. The MNU brass, which includes Wikus' father-in-law, decide that Wikus' life is worth less than what his DNA can bring them if they can give humans the ability to use alien weaponry, and decide to turn him into a lab experiment. Wikus escaped and fled into District 9, where he realized that the true plan was to use the fluid, a spaceship fuel, to get home.

The aliens' life on Earth was miserable, and they wanted nothing more than to go back to a place where they were not the "Other". In what I thought was one of the saddest scenes in the film (along with the final shots), Christopher's young son, who was born on Earth, asked his father when they would get to go home. Christopher tried to reassure him that they would be getting a new and better home, and pointed to one of the tents on the MNU brochure for District 10, even though he likely knew that at best, District 10 would be more of the same. Wikus and Christopher formed a plan to get the fuel back because Christopher revealed that the hovering ship had genetic equipment that could reverse Wikus' metamorphosis, but even with a common goal (and now common DNA), Wikus still treated the aliens as inferiors. He cooperated with them because they had something he needed, but he never forgot where their place in society was.

That is until he saw the full treachery of MNU. Wikus finally learned that his fear was based on propaganda and misperceptions propagated by his government and employer. The third act of the film was a bit heavy on action sequences, but it still contained a lot of racial analogues. Wikus was now an other, contaminated by the aliens, and was now subhuman (literally). His maltreatment by his employer and its military faction, as well as the way Christopher treated him well after Wikus had been so rude and demeaning to Christopher, made Wikus realize that things weren't as they seemed in District 9. Things sort of worked out for Christopher, but, like in reality, the racism persisted. The movie set things up fairly well for a sequel, although I could certainly see the merits of not making one and keeping things open-ended, because racism will never go away.

Up next: Gloury hallelujah...

Funny People: Near-Life Experience

Strangely, the the order in which I post on these movies is both the order in which I saw them and the ascending order of my enjoyment of them, so of the three, I enjoyed Funny People the least. It was a fine movie (I hesitate to say good) and an interesting movie, but it was definitely less than the sum of its parts. The movie definitely had Apatow's fingerprints all over it; there were scenes that were heavily improvised (the trailers show plenty of alternate line readings) and the film balanced lazy-guy humor with grown-up emotions. Adam Sandler also incorporated a lot of his own "personality" (by that, I mean his stage personality) into the movie to make it somewhat biographical. But the movie also diverged from Apatow's other two films, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up (both of which I'll try to post on at some point, if only to make fun of Katherine Heigl) in that the journey of the leads was not as linear or uplifting.

The film tells the stories of George Simmons, a comedian who made it big doing stupid movies who is too much of an asshole for his own good, and Ira Wright, an up-and-comer who loves the world of comedy but is too sweet for his own good. George lives alone in a palatial mansion in LA. He has acquaintances, like Andy Dick and Eminem, he has employees (gardeners and chefs), and he has an agent (played by Bryan Batt of Mad Men), but he doesn't have friends. He spends his days feeling sorry for himself that he drove away the love of his life when he was younger because of his infidelity. Ira lives on a pull-out couch with two of his more successful friends; Leo is a much better stand-up than Ira and Mark stars on a popular (but extremely stupid) sitcom on NBC called Yo Teach!. After George received news from his doctor that he had a rare form of leukemia, he decided to take the stage at a stand-up club and deliver a macabre performance about what the world will do without him. Ira happened to go on after George that night, and when he started bombing, he made fun of George's act in order to save his act.

George took notice and although hostile at first, he realized that Ira (and Leo) had potential, and invited the two of them to his house to help write jokes. Ira jumped at the opportunity and boxed Leo out, seeing the invitation as his opportunity to finally become more famous than his roommates. To Ira, the offer was also an invitation to become friends with his childhood idol. To George, he was just hiring another manager. Although George often made bizarre demands to Ira, such as talking George to sleep, Ira stuck with him because he was now in a world that he could never have imagined before. George brought Ira along to a corporate gig for MySpace, took him for limo rides, and provided a glimpse of what success could be (Ira was too starstruck to see behind the glamor at first, though). Ira put up with the way George often mocked him and mistreated him because he was too enamored with the idea of who George was and the life he lived. George eventually informed Ira of his condition, to which Ira became very upset, and vowed to help George get through any way he could.

But then things turned around. While George was sick, Ira wrote off Geroge's abusive and erratic behavior as being due to his sickness and the knowledge of his impending death. But after George learned he was getting better, his behavior did not change. He was still the same self-absorbed, angry, asshole he had been since Ira had met him. Things got even more awkward for Ira when George's old flame, Laura, finally started talking to George again. The knowledge of his disease made Laura feel sorry for him, and after years of avoiding the man who had hurt her so much, she finally wanted him back in her life. Laura had gone on to marry a man who turned out to be similar to George in some ways; he also proceeded to cheat on Laura and he had a self-absorbed streak as well. However, Clarke could show compassion for Laura and their kids as well.

A series of bad events with Laura and Clarke, which included Clarke nearly killing George and Ira after learning that Laura and George slept together, the two comedians parted ways (that's putting it lightly). Ira finally realized who George really was and he knew that George was not the kind of person he wanted in his life. George saw that Ira was not just another kiss-ass yes-man who would allow George to get away with his bad behavior by not questioning it. Ira pointed out that not only did George's near death experience teach him nothing, George actually regressed a bit; George couldn't understand what he had done to put off Laura and Clarke when his numerous mistakes were readily apparent to every character in the movie and person in the audience. However, Ira did learn that if he was ever going to be successful at ANYTHING, whether it be comedy or wooing Daisy, the pretty comedienne across the street, he was going to have to adopt some of George's personality traits to a lesser degree. After all, Ira was so "sweet" (read: naive) that he treated Daisy like they were in a relationship before they went on their first date (he was upset that she slept with his roommate after Ira and Daisy had talked once). There is a bit of a happy ending, but it was more of a potential promise of happiness rather than happiness itself.

Funny People had many extremely funny scenes. And even scenes that were meant to be funny and were just fair, or were meant to be dramatic, had extremely funny lines. The Swedish doctor saying "Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker" after George made Die Hard references at his expense was great, and Laura's fake Australian accent (Oy!) was amazing. The actors' improv abilities were fully utilized and made for some great scenes with unexpected lines. Yet something about the movie seemed off. It was a little too long and the Laura/Clarke story almost seemed like it was a whole different movie because it started so late and required the action to move from LA to San Francisco. The movie was very dark, which both helped and hurt it in certain ways. I love darkness in my movies, but darkness must be balanced; characters who have bad personalities must either be fun to watch or have some redeeming traits. George had neither. Which was the point. The fact that George was so irredeemable was both interesting because it was what Ira needed to grow, but also grew tiresome. After a while, I wondered why Ira didn't skip out on him earlier.

Funny People is certainly not Apatow's best (40-Year-Old Virgin gets that honor from me), but it is certainly a movie worth seeing, if only once. It is the relatively rarely-seen story of the angst behind comedians and an unconventional story of personal growth. It is also hilarious in many (but not enough) places.

Up next: Alien apartheid...

Summer's End

I've been back from Europe for about a week (and have been meaning to do posts on the new Mad Men and the original pilot of Dollhouse, but have been very busy) and I start classes again tomorrow. In that time, I've seen three movies, all of which I feel are worth discussing here. Sadly, unlike the other summer movies I talked about, I did not see these ones for free, but they were definitely worth seeing.

Up first is Funny People, Judd Apatow's latest film, which is about the life of comedians, both successful and blossoming. Next is District 9, a science fiction film that came out of nowhere and made huge waves. It is an analogue for apartheid, and tells a very interesting story of what might happen if aliens came to Earth. Lastly is Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, an alternate history World War II thriller that may be the most entertaining movie I've seen all summer. The film clearly deals in wish fulfillment, but there are genuine themes and ideas behind all the war violence.

I will try to get some Mad Men posts in as the show goes on, and I'm debating whether a discussion on the original and no-longer-canon Dollhouse pilot is necessary.

Up next: Tears of a clown...

Star Wars: Light and Dark

Hey everyone, I'm still in Prague, but I just finished up a huge project (and I'm recovering from celebrating the end of it), so I thought I'd lounge a bit and finish my series on Star Wars. Watching Return of the Jedi on Independence Day is what planted the idea for a post series in my mind, but I think what ultimately made me realize I wanted to talk about some of the themes was a line in Revenge of the Sith. After seeing Return and talking about the series as a whole with some of my friends, I decided to rewatch a few scenes of Revenge on YouTube. I really want to enjoy that movie because the overall story, the fall of Anakin Skywalker, is intriguing and it has some amazing duel scenes. Sadly, Anakin's fall is handled so poorly and the dialogue is so clunky that I can't will myself to like it. But as I was watching the build-up to Anakin and Obi-Wan's duel, one thing Obi-Wan said to Anakin really hit me. When Anakin said that Obi-Wan was either his friend or his enemy, Obi-Wan responded that only Sith deal in absolutes. Which is total bullshit. (Note: I just went on YouTube to see if I could get a short video of this exchange for the post, and someone pointed out that the line is an oxymoron.)

All the way back in A New Hope, Obi-Wan was telling Luke about the difference between the Light Side and the Dark Side of the Force; there isn't a bigger absolutist position than that. Jedi are trained to discern the Light Side from the Dark Side and to NEVER dabble in the darkness. In The Phantom Menace itself and the marketing for Attack of the Clones, this was further expanded upon; one somewhat famous scene from Phantom (it was in the first trailers... and was later alluded to in Buffy) has Yoda warning young Anakin that he was full of fear and that fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to the Dark Side. Then, there was a poster for Clones that featured Anakin and Padme back to back with a caption reading "A Jedi shall not know anger, nor hatred, nor love."

This way of life presents multiple problems in my opinion. The Jedi learn to control (read: suppress) their emotions and in effect become less than human. Or at least, that is how they should be if they truly eradicate their ability to feel basic human emotions like anger, fear, hatred, and love. Fear can even be a healthy emotion; it can inform us of when we should flee instead of fight, and people who claim to feel no fear usually are either arrogant or fooling themselves. And to deny oneself anger is pretty dangerous. I have no doubt that plenty of organizations in the Star Wars universe have done things to piss off the Jedi, whether it be the Senate, the Sith, or smugglers, and although the Jedi may be good at controlling their anger, there are probably some things that are unforgivable, even to the most enlightened and calm. The fact that the Jedi are "peace-keeping" agents requires them to be in a position that will earn them a lot of enemies, and there will likely be some animosity between the Jedi and the Sith. Obi-Wan was probably upset with Anakin for his descent into darkness, and I can't imagine not hating the man partly responsible for destroying your way of life and everything you hold sacred.

Even the fact that the distinction of the Force is based upon lightness and darkness is absolutist. Is every Jedi who follows the path of the Light Side morally clean? Is every Sith morally bankrupt? George Lucas continually tries to point out Darth Vader, a Sith lord, as a tragic figure with redeeming characteristics. And come on, there has to be at least one Jedi who is a total dick. You can probably tell from this that I am a moral relativist, and I think that if a character in the Star Wars universe were to find a way to walk a middle path between lightness and darkness, that character would become more powerful than any other Jedi or Sith (maybe that happened; Palpatine told Anakin that he could foresee him becoming the most powerful Jedi ever, and Anakin was a "tragic" Sith). To use the incredible powers of the Dark Side for righteous and moral means and still be able to become "one with the Force" (become a Force Ghost) would have its advantages.

That's it for Star Wars for now. Law school is starting up again soon, so my posts won't be frequent for a while. I will try and keep up with TV (Mad Men, Dollhouse, and Dexter are starting up soon), but I don't have an idea for a post series right now.

Up next: Television tracking...