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...