Written by Swarnava Bannerjee and Laavanyaa Joshi
Edited by Nishtha Chakrabarti
Illustration by Shravan Bakkiyaraj
The movie Pulp Fiction is a vivid canvas of violence and redemption. The themes revolving around this movie cannot be easily categorized. The script involves a side of Los Angeles that is almost never portrayed. A bold introduction to the world of cinema, it was a take that was fresh and new for its time.
"We Ain't In The Prisoner-Takin' Business; We're In The Killin' Nazi Business."
This dialogue truly proves the motive and the grit behind Quentin Tarantino's unbridled masterpiece, that is "Inglourious Basterds"- starring some gems of Hollywood, such as Cristoph Waltz, Brad Pitt, Diane Kreuger, Michael Fassbender and many more. The movie encompasses some of the atrocities caused during World War II, but in smaller scale scenes that show us a myriad of emotions.
Tarantino's distinctive style of expression and communication conjugates the mundane with the extreme. During the course of the movie, we often find the characters involved in long winded conversations and small insignificant moments that are symbolic and often missed out on. These are soon followed up by unanticipated, violent, over the top explosions. Through these transitions, Tarantino highlights the coexistence of the hazardous with the mundane.
This coexistence is best portrayed with the help of the frequent bathroom breaks. While focusing on what is served to us on a platter throughout the movie, it is easy to say that every time Vincent (played by John Travolta) goes to the bathroom, something bad is bound to happen. However, Pulp Fiction's bathroom motif sends a larger message. The bathroom scenes were the only time the characters were found to be alone. The solitude faced by the characters in the bathrooms is a symbol of ultimate loneliness. These scenes conclude that the humdrum realities of everyday life are just as much a part of life as lively and action filled days.
Inglourious Basterds, however, was a completely different take on Tarantino's signature
with the emotions of fear, suspense and anger reigning free. The fear of Shoshanna as she ran away from her refuge all the while hearing the vulture-like screeches of Hans Landa shouting, "Au Revoir Shoshanna!" after gunning down her entire family, is transformed in a sort of metamorphosis leading to her burning down the theater with the entire Nazi Party inside along with herself. This scene displays the development of the scared girl we saw in the beginning, to an iron-willed woman who was ready to die completing her convictions.
For another take, albeit not an entirely graceful one, we have Lt. Aldo Raine leading a group of ragtag Jewish soldiers as a statement towards the Germans. This was a sheer display of irony on Tarantino's part, and absolute bravery on the characters' part.
We can see the sheer anger of the soldiers towards the Nazis turn into bloodthirst as each and every one of them remember their lieutenant's words- "Each And Every Man Under My Command Owes Me One Hundred Nazi Scalps." This was in fact a tradition, followed by the Native Americans referring to Raine's "Apache” ideology. A display of hatred involving disgust was quite common in all of the soldiers under his command, but one- Sgt. Donny Donovan. A soldier who reveled in his unparalleled hate for Nazis, as we can see from him rejoicing after mutilating a Nazi named Werner with a baseball bat.
More importantly, on the lighter side of Pulp Fiction, the bathroom scenes add zeal and humor. They give the film a funny touch that helps deflect from its other aspects. Tarantino reminds us to not take anything too seriously, including the movie and life itself.
In Inglorious Basterds, we can see a raw emotion which is quite contradictory to Pulp Fiction, which uses minute hints towards a specific emotion before leaving it up to the viewers to comprehend and interpret. This movie was a rather unique take on a traditional war story, using a smaller canvas to portray a beautifully detailed image, further brought to undying glory through the hands of Quentin Tarantino.
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