About two thirds in to the movie, Leanardo Di
Caprio's character in the movie, Calvin Candie, an sadistic plantation owner,
wonders aloud:
“I've
been surrounded my entire life by black faces. I only have one question: Why
don't they just rise up and kill the whites?”
At which Christopher Waltz, playing Dr. King
Schultz, chuckles, “Who knows what could
happen!”
Django Unchained is essentially a full-blown story
of that one single thought, a twisted fantasy where Tarantino imagines Black people seeking
retribution and this is a bloody one at that. Not unlike Inglourious Basterds, where Tarantino decided to revisit history to wonder how it would have been
if the numerous attempts on Hitler's life had succeeded. It is a sort of guilty
pleasure, and in these revisionist versions Tarantino in his own way
has tried to right the wrongs of the past. This time around he goes after the most
shameful era of American history: the pre civil war time, when Black Americans
were bought and sold as slaves and treated worse than animals. And nowhere was
it more rampant than the deep South, which is where this movie is based.
Briefly, Chritopher Waltz is a bounty hunter who
frees Jamie Foxx from his slave owners and enlists his help to find 3 criminals
on the run. In return, he promises to help Foxx find his wife, who was sold to
another plantation owned by Leonardo Di Caprio. How the 2 bandied
brothers-in-arms set out to find Jamie Foxx's wife, played by Kerry Washington, forms the the rest of the story.
As always with all Tarantino's films the characters
are a bunch of weird and quirky people, who speak memorable lines all the time.
Tarantino's greatest strength in my opinion is his screenplay writing skill and
in particular his dialogues. He loves crafting scenes, where characters talk
about seemingly mundane things with a deep undercurrent of tension running
along. Remember Samuel L Jackson's (who also an small but interesting part in
this film) famous scene from Pulp Fiction where has a very innocuous conversation about burgers and coke with a terrified guy before violence erupts
And of course, Christopher Waltz's famous opening interrogation scene in Inglourious Basterds, where he shuffles between 3 languages while very politely and disarmingly turns a French peasant into a squeaky coward, who is forced to reveal the hideouts of his Jewish neighbors, is another classic example of this style. Django has, at least, a couple of similar scenes.
Tarantino's inspirations clearly come from the classic spaghetti westerns tropes: the weary travelers, bounty hunters, the outsiders on a mission, revenge. In this case, his twist being the setting, which concerns the practice of slavery and its evil manifestations. But with that territory comes the necessary violence, although some may disagree whether the gore is justified. Tarantino himself is no stranger to visceral action and the spilling of bodily fluids and parts that are seeped in crimson. But it may not be for everyone, especially those with weak stomachs.
Django in many ways is a typical Tarantino film and yet is probably one of his most straightforward ones. The movie is fairly linear and the storyline doesn't have that many surprises, but it stays entertaining throughout. This one is a special holiday gift for his devout fans.