By Josh Noem
Avatar might have been promoted as having changed movies, but the only Oscar-nominated film to actually do so was Inglourious Basterds.
It is a fairytale that begins "Once upon a time in Nazi-occupied France..." and that ends with a swastika being carved into your forehead with a Bowie knife. Anyone who sees this movie, particularly in a theater rather than at home, should leave feeling their head for a scar.
The main premise of the movie serves as the bait. In this storyline, Lt. Aldo Raines (Brad Pitt) leads a band of Jewish-Americans into Nazi-occupied France to fight a guerilla war and spread fear among German troops by brutalizing Nazis. I saw this movie on campus, and it was clear that the bulk of the crowd arrived to see American soldiers braining Nazis.
The film breaks into another, more significant narrative, however, and this storyline is the hook. A Jewish girl, in hiding with her family under a French farmer's house, is discovered and flees while her family is murdered. She later comes to own a theater in Paris that is chosen to premiere a Goebbel's-produced propaganda war film about a trapped Nazi sniper who kills hundreds of Allied soldiers.
Meanwhile, a German actress volunteers as a spy and sneaks the Basterds into this premiere, attended by the Nazi high command, in an effort to assassinate Hitler and end the war.
Hunting down both the spy and the Basterds is Colonel Landa, brilliantly plaid by Christopher Waltz (who won best supporting actor this year).
The two storylines converge at the premiere, where the fairytale ending has the entire audience perishing in flames and Hitler torn to pieces by machine gun fire.
Beneath the storylines, this is actually a movie about what we want from movies. Reactions to the film reveal a lot about a person's interior state and deeper desires.
Those with higher mores leave the film disquieted that it might try to pacify such an atrocity as the Holocaust with vengeance. Those hungry for violence are not satisfied with the two or three brutalities. After the screening on campus, I actually heard a student state, "I expected so much more violence."
This student, like anyone else unquestioningly formed by mainstream popular culture and its thirst for novelty and stimulation, took the bait-hook, line and sinker. It is as if we are fish swimming in the cultural influences we let into our lives. This movie lures us in, then pulls us, thrashing, into the sunlight for everyone to see just what kind of creature we've let ourselves become.
Basterds portrays the power of cinema to fulfill impossible dreams, which forces the question, "Just what are your dreams?" For those of us who are Christian, the film should cause us to stop and think hard about whether or not we are really enjoying the brutalities, and if we should be.
If we do enjoy the brutalities, then we are no different than Hitler, who we see laughing with glee when Allied troops are gunned down in the propaganda film-within-the-film. It is only a matter of minutes until Hitler is gunned down himself, and the live audience reaction to this event, at least in BC Auditorium the night I saw it, was eerily similar to the Fuhrer's glee.
This explains the final scene, where Lt. Raines is carving a swastika on Col. Landa's head. The camera depicts this scene from Landa's perspective, as if we were the ones who have the swastika on our heads. Judging by the reaction of the campus audience I saw the movie with, we deserve it.
For more thoughts on Inglorious Basterds and our lives of faith, including a screening of the movie, come to Shiley 319 at 7 p.m. on Tuesday for the Garaventa Center's "Bringing the Eyes of Faith to Film" series.
