Film Review | Django Unchained (2013)

Promoting Django Unchained in an interview with Playboy Magazine at the end of last year, Quentin Tarantino was quoted as saying that "directors don't get better as they get older. Usually the worst films in their filmography are those last four at the end. I'm all about my filmography, and one bad film fucks up three good ones". Ironically, if there is any contemporary director whose output disproves this theory, it's Tarantino himself. And if Django Unchained ended up being his last hurrah, then what a spectacular way it would be to sew up Tarantino's beloved filmography.

Django Unchained in many ways feels like the spiritual and natural successor to Tarantino's most recent previous work, Inglourious Basterds, with the two films in conjunction feeling as though they hail a renaissance in the director's career. Tarantino is no longer the young upstart on the scene, the indie filmmaker who reshaped 1990s cinema with the one-two combo of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. That's not to say that his films no longer have the impact they once did. Quite the contrary in fact: Inglourious Basterds was so bold in its execution, so finely mastered by the man behind the camera, that it couldn't help but redefine war films for the modern era. Django Unchained does the same for the western genre, arguably with even greater success.

This is hands down Tarantino's finest story yet. From the opening scenes to the final moments, Tarantino the writer knows exactly where he's taking Django as well as every other character involved; Tarantino the director assuredly takes you along with them every step. This is intoxicating cinema, both brutal and beautiful - Django Unchained shows that the jawdropping cinematography of Inglourious Basterds was no one-off. Tarantino may beg, steal and borrow from his encyclopaedic passion for cinema when crafting his tales, but nobody can deny that he is one of the most artistically proficient filmmakers making movies today.

Tarantino's skill for drawing out the very best work from his actors is as robust as ever here. Jamie Foxx as Django is intense and immeasurably cool, developing the character over the film's effortless 165 minutes without putting a foot wrong. Alongside him is Christoph Waltz's dentist-turned-bounty-hunter Dr. King Schultz. It's almost unfair to compare Waltz's performance here to his enigmatic turn as Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds, so I simply won't. Waltz is once again superb, immediately creating a captivating curiosity of a character who you can't help but warm to. Waltz regularly makes Schultz a genuinely funny character too, relieving some of Django Unchained's inherent heaviness with a perfectly timed quip or a charming demonstration of the Schultz's gift of the gab. The chemistry between Foxx and Waltz is palpable and rich, two fine actors on top of their game brilliantly glancing off one another wonderfully throughout.

If the film's first half belongs to Waltz and Foxx, then its second is firmly in the joint possession of Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson. DiCaprio's incomparably vile plantation owner Calvin Candie is a villain for the ages, with the actor imbuing his creation with a heady mix of Southern hospitality and monstrous cruelty. Matching DiCaprio in detestabilty is Jackson as Stephen, Candie's aging Uncle Tom of a house slave. His is a performance as captivating as it is ire-inducing, the actor's finest since his last major role in a Tarantino film as Ordell Robbie in 1997's Jackie Brown.

Django Unchained comes together brilliantly as Tarantino's most mature work yet. The director strides assuredly and masterfully into his third decade of filmmaking with fresh ideas and increasingly impressive cinematic style and craft, whilst at the same time making clear that same burning desire and unbridled passion for every element of every moment of his films seen since his earliest work. During the same interview referenced earlier, Tarantino suggested that he may stop directing after his tenth film. If he follows through with this plan, it means we've got three more films to see from him yet. And if Django Unchained is anything to go by, we've potentially got some of the finest cinema ever created to look forward to.

10/10

Film Review | Inglourious Basterds (2009)

If the 1990s defined Quentin Tarantino as one of the finest directing talents of modern cinema, then the first decade of the 21st Century showed that he is also one of the most unpredictable. The director's '90s trifecta - Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown - all feel decidedly complete, whilst at the same time  exhibiting shared themes and an unmistakable style to the point that all three films arguably take place in the same universe. In contrast, Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 by definition are two halves of one long and bloody epic story that inhabit their own world, whilst Death Proof is an esoteric love letter to a film-making and cinema-going style of yesteryear which shared more than just a double billing with Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror. Inglourious Basterds is arguably therefore Tarantino's first and only stand-alone film of the 2000s when measured against his 20th Century output. In many ways it signifies a new direction for Tarantino, with a quasi-historical context and a multilingual script. But this is also undeniably a Tarantino film, and moreover one which redefines the director as a breathtakingly skilled auteur.

From its opening prologue-like sequence, Inglourious Basterds is a film which commands your attention. Cinematically this is Tarantino's most mature work, with expertly crafted sequences that segue through historical drama, spaghetti western, romantic melodrama and exploitation with a refinement surpassing even the director's most acclaimed works. Every shot is a work of art, but two sequences within the film stand out as possibly the best ever seen from Tarantino. The first is the opening chapter, exuding quality and making an immediate statement through the subtitled French dialogue and beautiful yet sinister wartime countryside setting: this is at once the director not only away from his usual backdrops, but also out of his comfort zone, and yet making a masterpiece of every moment.

The opening scenes also introduce one of Tarantino's, and indeed cinema's, greatest ever character creations in Colonel Hans Landa, played to perfection by Christoph Waltz. The actor's performance is sublime to the point of being almost indescribable, creating an immensely complex and yet starkly straightforward personality it is impossible not to simultaneously despise and be awestruck by. Every moment Waltz is on screen is pure cinematic pleasure, with his introduction as "The Jew Hunter" of the SS in the film's opening one of the finest moments Tarantino, or in fact any director, has committed to celluloid.

As perfect as the film's prologue is, Tarantino's crowning achievement within Inglourious Basterds is undeniably the scene set in "La Louisiane", a basement bar at which a liaison between German double agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), undercover Brit Lt. Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) and two of the Basterds takes place. The entire scene is laced with tension, and is so finely crafted as to be a microcosmic movie contained within the main film's narrative.

Whilst this may feel like one of Tarantino's more uneven works tonally - consider how far the film changes from its quietly controlled, dramatic opening to its hyperreal, ultraviolence-fuelled finale - that's not to say that the film falters in between the moments highlighted. Tarantino commands the film's multi-plotted narrative as a virtuoso conductor does a concerto through his perfectly-assembled orchestra of superb acting talents, many of whom are bold choices being unknown to English-speaking audiences plucked as they are from European cinema. So high is the quality of the casting and performances throughout that even Eli Roth's subpar turn as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz is forgivable.

Inglourious Basterds is a tour de force from Tarantino: a rip-roaring war epic which straddles genres, delivering entertainment, emotion and extreme violence whilst showing off the director's supreme talent behind the camera in the same way as his early work that first caught popular attention. This may be harder for audiences to take to their hearts in the same way as they did, say, Pulp Fiction, but Inglourious Basterds more than deserves to go down as a true Tarantino classic.

10/10

Film Review | Carnage (2011)

Films based on plays are a curious breed; there are stylistic choices for the director, and none of them are the obvious selection. Do you take the story and characters of a play and retell it using solely the language of cinema, but risk displeasing both theatre fans and the playwright; or do you opt for essentially filming a stage performance, with all the facets of theatrical acting and direction, in the knowledge that what you create may alienate cinema-goers and feel somewhat underwhelming when compared to a full-on cinematic experience? Carnage opts firmly for the latter, and I can't remember the last time I saw such a strong argument for choosing this approach.

Based on the play God Of Carnage by Yasmina Reza, the film centres around a visit by one couple, Alan (Christoph Waltz) and Nancy Cowan (Kate Winslet), to the apartment of another, Michael (John C. Reilly) and Penelope Longstreet (Jodie Foster), after the Cowens' son strikes and injures the Longstreets' son with a stick whilst playing in the park. What starts as a brief and civil meeting to agree how the two boys can reconcile soon untangles into a much more tense and emotionally brutal affair.

As stated before, Polanski's film feels almost like a filmed performance on a stage, with the vast majority of the action taking place in one room in the Longstreets' Brooklyn apartment. There are a handful of scenes which venture into other rooms, as well as the action spilling into the apartment block hallway more than once, but this is a theatrical film with very little set changes. In this way, Polanski places pretty much all of his eggs in one basket, those eggs being the four actors playing the pair of couples.

It's a move which pays off dividends, with each performer putting in an incredibly strong performance. All four begin the film feeling somewhat forced and unnatural in their portrayals, but it soon becomes clear that this is entirely intentional, with each couple putting on a "performance" for the other. It's when the fur begins to fly that we truly see these actors at their best. Winslet is superb as the put-upon wife trying to make up for her husband Waltz's lack of care for middle class niceties and his constant preoccupation with his mobile phone. Both skilfully shed the layers of their facade as the situation unravels. Foster too is pleasingly strong as the doting mother and houseproud wife, slowly descending into hysteria and desperation. Of the four, Reilly is probably the least safe bet on paper, but he more than holds his own. Beginning the film as the buttoned-down hubby, he finally shows his true colours with a blistering performance from Reilly as an everyman on the edge.

The screenplay too, adapted by Polanski with original writer Reza, is an intoxicating powder keg waiting to explode. The first act of the film threatens to keep things largely civilised, but this is just Polanski waiting to signal the true nature of the uncomfortable yet ludicrously funny beast on show; once he does so, in spectacular fashion no less via one (involuntary) action of Winslet's character, things are firmly kicked into high gear until the credits roll. The dialogue fizzles with an enigmatic blend of realism and rhetoric, with only a couple of moments where what the characters are saying feels slightly too clever for its own good. These are minor niggles however in what is an exceptionally well-written film.

The mirror that the film holds up to a certain subset of society through these characters is hardly a new one, but the way in which Polanski does it has rarely been so entertaining. There is an intricate web of action and reaction, battle lines are drawn and redrawn with each character realigning themselves more than once. We move sublimely between character study to social satire to farce, with the whole thing poignantly put into perspective by the only two scenes set outside the apartment, shown to us behind the opening and closing credits. The brief running time of just under an hour and twenty minutes mean that none of the characters outstays their welcome.

Carnage establishes itself as a gem within theatrical film adaptations. It's smart, slick and deliciously over-the-top, with the quartet of actors at its centre making this the comprehensive success that it is. Polanski may not be the darling of the cinema world for reasons outside his work as a director; however, Carnage is a powerful statement of his expert directorial craftsmanship that still demands respect and the highest of praise.

9/10