After almost three months, I finally had time & energy to actually watch the movie from my computer - since I am usually finishing work late after midnight, it was not possible so far (I did read several books, it takes less effort) but a late night dinner conversation with colleagues inspired me to search for new Quentin Tarantino movie I had planned to enjoy for some time.
"Django unchained" is typical Quentin Tarantino movie - very enjoyable up to a certain point, than gets a bit out of control, like usual. Nothing can repeat the initial excitement of the very first time I saw his movie in cinema ("Pulp Fiction" years ago) and at this point we know what to expect from him - odd characters who might die suddenly and violently in the middle of sentence, eccentric background music, all kind of tributes and pastiches from every corners of cinema history, lots of guts, blood and slow motion action. Since it was long time I had chance to watch any movie, I was thrilled initially - Tarantino always directs his stories with crazy abandon and passion and its easy to get carried away together with him, some scenes I re-watched again because they were so well staged (Django whipping the white man, his meeting with wife) - however at certain point I felt that movie lasts perhaps a little longer than it should have and towards the end I slowly lost the interest. Which is strange as the finale was very bombastic and full of slow motioned action, explosions and blood - contrary to director's intention, this grand finale was less interesting than everything that lead to it.
Django is a black slave who finds himself entangled with head-hunting german eccentric (played excellently by Christoph Waltz) and these two unlikely partners roam the country in search of wanted criminals, earning their rewards for killing bad guys. As usual, Tarantino turns the history on its head and gives his black slave a horse and dignity so the whole "gallant south" is shocked with presence of black cowboy who talks back to white people with "silent but deadly" attitude. Tarantino not only plays off the whole racial thing, making a "The Birth of the Nation" in reverse, but cleverly positions Django's own black folk as his biggest enemies - later in the story there is a black servant who in fact is far bigger danger than any of the white people. There is a clear excitement and pleasure of watching Django as avenger who whips bad white slave owners and talking back insolently to big bad guys but of course we know that this has absolutely nothing to do with reality, its Tarantino's dream of black revenge on white man for all the cruelty and injustice american history unfortunately can't erase and forget.There is one obligatory big star in the movie - Leonardo Di Caprio - who is basically the main antagonist, but I never bought into his fame or supposed talent, his character could have been played by ten other actors and we would not miss him. The movie moves fast and enjoyable to its climax - the moment when Django finally meets his wife - than suddenly everything else seems less interesting, as Tarantino loses focus and can't get himself (and his characters) out of this situation without conventional escape into big fire, explosions, blood spurting, gun shots and usual action - I could easily live without last 30 minutes that somehow spoiled everything that came before.
No comments:
Post a Comment