Quentin Tarantino returns this week with Django Unchained: an ultra-violent historical revenge fantasy (think Inglourious Basterds but with slavery). As usual, Tarantino’s film has been the centre of controversy and had some sniffy reviews. But I think it’s brilliant – all nearly three hours of it – entertaining, funny, and cleverer than you can register on first viewing.
It’s 1858, Django (Jamie Foxx) is a slave freed by Dr Shultz (Christoph
Waltz), a bounty hunter, to help him identify three criminal brothers. The
two bond bloodily and Shultz helps Django find his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), from whom he has been separated. This takes them
to Candyland, Di Caprio’s slave plantation.
The film’s real strength, aside from Tarantino’s usual lunatic-brilliance and comi-violence, is in its genre play. Django Unchained is part
Spaghetti Western (the name is taken from a 1966 Western) and part fairytale: ‘Broomhilda’ is a damsel-indistress of German folklore. Indeed,
Washington’s character does little aside from screaming, swooning
and being ridiculously attractive.
The tone of the film is as absurd as you’d hope, aided by a soundtrack
which combines traditional western and country music with Tupac during moments of triggerhappiness (what this says about the violent revenge of a slave and the violent narratives of gangster-rap is a disturbing
question).
If you are so inclined, there is a smorgasbord of potential reasons to be offended, from cinematised slavery, depictions of black Americans, depictions of white Americans through to glorified violence and inconsequential murder. And critics have been hitting this buffet hard.
Tarantino’s latest film undeniably raises some dark questions about cinema, history and violence. But at least you leave asking them. Just don’t direct them at Tarantino himself. As Channel 4‘s Krishnan Guru-Murthy discovered, he’ll “shut your butt down.”
Maybe there is something fairly dark about sitting in a room full of people laughing joyously at what is basically an extremely gory massacre, but Tarantino has a get-out-of-jail-free card: it’s funny. The script is sharp, the visuals are brilliant (watch out for the KKK’s masked charge and Django’s Austin Powers moment) and ultimately, thanks to Tarantino’s morally-unambiguous piece of history (cynically chosen?), the audience laughs their way to Django’s triumphantly silly end.
