Quentin Tarantino is already various critics in his career: steps on the feet inside. However, his 2009 war film Inglourious Basterds was observed with eyes. Because after the B-Film-Rachspantei Kill Bill and Death Proof, Tarantino dealt with the filmic representation not only of the Second World War, but of the Holocaust. In particular, the finale of the film, which streamed in the Netflix catalog, was discussed.
At Netflix: Why Inglourious Basterds ushered in a new Tarantino era
Inglourious Basterds is one of the best films by Quentin Tarantino and marks the beginning of a new era in the work of the pulp fiction director. Before that, Tarantino first worked out on film history, from gangster film Reservoir Dogs to the Grindhouse contribution Death Proof. Film and especially genres continue to play a major role, but with Inglourious Basterds the Staging From reality into focus, i.e. historical events.
Take a look at the trailer for Inglourious Basterds:
Inglourious Basterds – Trailer 2 (German)
Basterds processes the war and genocide of the European Jews in a fictional plot, which was inspired by war films like the dirty dozen and killing everyone back alone. Django Unchained and The Hateful 8 followed this pattern and accepted slavery and the consequences of the American civil war. And in Once Upon A Time … in Hollywood Tarantino turned to the murder of Sharon Tate and her friends by members of the Manson family.
Especially with a view of his latest film, Inglourious Basterds looks like that Blaupauer from Tarantino’s work in the 2010s. And that is particularly at the end. Because Tarantino not only processes real history in fictional scenarios. He writes history to a certain extent in Basterds and also in Once Upon a Time …
How was the end of Inglourious Basterds in 2009?
The story of the Jewish Shoshanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) and the dirty dozen under Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), who are trying to eliminate the leadership of the National Socialists at the same time, takes some freedom with the real historical processes.
The Basterds end: “tasteless” and “terrifyingly insensitive”?
The sensation was correspondingly great after Inglourious Basterds celebrated its premiere in a spectacular Cannes year in 2009 (Antichrist! Enter the Void! The white band!). Basterds became the Discussion material in features, blogs and books Like hardly any other Tarantino film before or after.
Ty Burr summarized it in the Boston Globe: “You take a Tarantino film seriously at your own risk, which is why Inglourious Basterds is his greatest risk: an entertaining action comedy-careful-the Holocaust.” And:
Obviously too much is required to clever child – What Tarantino is still at 46 – to be expected that history deals with history in any meaningful form.
David Denby described the film in New York as “ridiculous and frighteningly insensitive”. Wendy Ide saw one for the British Times (via Rotten Romatoes) “Combs, infantiles and deeply tasteless “ film.
J. Hoberman from Village Voice saw a film that “Jews enables themselves to behave like Nazis, in which they take part in cold-flowered massacres and mass burns, which is almost Psychotic break with reality forced. “
Attention, from here, spoilers follow at the end of Inglourious Basterds.
Tarantino is growing up: the Inglourious Basterds end was also praised
For Rüdiger Suchsland, Inglourious Basterds, on the other hand, was Tarantino’s best film, which ends up Something trusted in front of which the German cinema is afraid:
To show the dead Hitler, to reverse his face and thus the myth itself, the Undetot reversal of history This film does that. That could also act as a liberation.
Georg Seßlen (Spiegel), who also published a book about Inglourious Basterds with “Quentin Tarantino against the Nazis”, wrote about a “radical gesture” that means the end of the Tarantino film:
In this radical gesture maybe that’s Growing up of tarantinism. As paradoxical as this sacrificial process may be: the dream location is sacrificed for reality, but only in a dream for which the reality is sacrificed. […] ‘Pulp fiction’ conquers fascist death kitsch. This director opposes the waving pictures of the dangerous hug of discourse and Nazi image with the baseball bat.
At Netflix you can currently get an idea of the film yourself. After so many “historical ham” Tarantinos, it can be easily overlooked, like unusual, surprising and, yes, also radical Inglourious Basterds 2009. It is therefore worth taking a look at the film with this awareness, because its concept and end can still be argued excellently 15 years later.
This article was published in a similar form in April 2024 at Moviepilot.