Last night I finally saw Tarantino’s “Inglou­rious Bas­terds”. I really wanted to see it in the the­ater, but I’ve not been very good at get­ting out to see movies over the last few months. My girl­friend and I have been caught up watching “Mad Men” on DVD.

As usual, QT shows his mas­tery of dialog and scene. Say what you might about the “Kill Bill” saga, the second movie was a col­lec­tion of bril­liant scenes and excel­lent dialog. What set’s “Kill Bill 2″ apart from “Bas­terds” is that there is a clear cut (pun intended) revenge story (the frame­work for which is estab­lished in “Kill Bill 1″). By com­par­ison, “Bas­terds” feels like another col­lec­tion of bril­liant, tense scenes that lack the same kind of cohe­sive story struc­ture. While all of “Kill Bill” char­ac­ters orbit the same plot and each scene builds to the cli­mactic meeting between Bill and The Bride, the cen­tral story of “Bas­terds” is harder to iden­tify. Despite the movie’s title, I think the main story is that of Shoshanna’s revenge on Colonel Landa. Brad Pitt’s slightly stupid but sin­ister Aldo seems to move in and out of the movie at random with no clear con­tinuum to his actions or motives. Rather, he’s just there “killing Nazis”. Christoph Waltz’s Landa, while bril­liantly played, serves as Aldo’s foil and as the source and object of Shoshanna’s under­stand­able rage.

The whole com­po­si­tion makes more sense if you con­sider the main char­ac­ters as avatars of World War II’s key players. Aldo, the hyper-American symbol (he’s part Apache!) arrives rel­a­tively late to the movie, after the action has already begun. He’s a little stupid and igno­rant but also cun­ning and ruth­less and escapes the movie more or less vic­to­rious. By com­par­ison, Landa’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Ger­many is multi-layered. He’s smooth, extremely intel­li­gent, per­pet­u­ally in a good mood but also ruth­less and self-serving. He jumps at the oppor­tu­nity to exit con­flict under the best pos­sible terms but comes away per­ma­nently marked by the stain of the Nazi regime. Shoshanna, rep­re­senting the Jews, is suc­cessful in seeking her revenge but fails to sur­vive – in part because she retains her humanity. Her killer, the embod­i­ment of German national pride, is killed at the climax of the movie but not before killing Shoshanna.

The movie is also full of ref­er­ences or homages to other movies. I par­tic­u­larly enjoyed the nods to old James Bond movies, the obvious ref­er­ence to the Dirty Dozen, and the Cin­derella scene. There are also many scenes that seemed bril­liantly familiar though I cannot name the spe­cific ref­er­ence. Lovers of cinema will pick up on them easily.

“Inglou­rious Bas­terds” is a Taran­tino film in every sense. It is vio­lent, over-the-top, and bril­liantly made. It embodies the director’s love of cinema and is not easily dismissed.