Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is a masterpiece that shows how to properly create suspense for an audience.
The film stars Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz and Mélanie Laurent and is Tarantino’s sixth film. I believe Inglourious Basterds is Tarantino’s magnum opus because of his use of suspense.
The movie starts in Nazi-occupied France on a dairy farm where Schutzstaffel (SS) officer Hans Landa, played by Waltz, interrogates a man suspected of sheltering Jewish people.
A Jewish woman, Shoshanna Dreyfus, played by Laurent, escapes before Landa has the chance to kill her. Years later, Dreyfus opens a cinema under the alias Emmanulle Mimieux, passing herself off as a French gentile.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Aldo Raine, played by Pitt, organizes a group of Jewish-American soldiers called “The Basterds” to kill Nazis and collect their scalps.
While Dreyfus works at the cinema she catches the eye of a patron, who happens to be a Nazi sniper. He is considered very important for fighting off hundreds of ally soldiers and Joseph Goebbles makes a propaganda movie about him. The sniper becomes smitten with Dreyfus and wants to hold the premier for his film at her cinema and only allow Germans.
The premiere gives Dreyfus the idea to burn down her cinema with all of the Germans inside. Joseph Goebbles and Adolf Hitler also go to the premier. British intelligence is alerted about the premier and organizes an attack with the Basterds called “Operation Kino.”
The two attacks on the Nazis are incredibly exciting and leave you in shock and awe at how the Basterds and Shoshanna can succeed. Landa alone is very menacing; he is a cunning detective working under the SS. What makes him particularly sinister is the audience is left wondering if he knows what they know.
Landa is a vicious predator who likes to play with his prey. What is worse is he is extremely intelligent, which leaves you worried for our heroes’ safety. With him, you never know when he will pounce or if he will leave someone alone for the time being.
The first 20 minutes of the movie shows how cunning Landa is as he interrogates the farmer. It is made clear to the audience the farmer is sheltering Jewish people, but we are not aware if Landa knows. When it is made clear he does know all tension breaks and you are left anxious.
If I had to erase my memory of any movie, it would be Inglourious Basterds so I could watch it for the first time again. It is the best the first time, but it is still very good when you know most of what happens.
Very subtle details are placed within the film that someone might miss the first or even second time watching. I would be doing a huge disservice to list any, so instead I suggest you watch the film for yourself. I think this just might be Tarantino’s masterpiece.
Nico Brazill can be contacted at
nbrazill@kscequinox.com
