catapult magazine

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discussion

Kill Bill

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Andrew
Oct 26 2003
11:09 am

I’ve got really mixed feelings about this film. I saw it for the first time last night, and I must admit that I totally loved it. Whenever I watch Tarantino films, I just come away with the feeling that every single scene is infused with joy. It just makes it that much more fun to watch when you know that the filmmaker is having fun.

But I find something really disturbing about his films, too. I’m not talking about the violence, or the language. It’s the attitude that gets me.

It seems like Tarantino approaches everything with a lot of irony. It’s hard to take stuff seriously when you feel like the director is always winking at you. Take the opening quote: “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” For a moment, the audience might be persuaded to take it seriously and wonder what it means, until they see that it is an “old Klingon proverb” and PRESTO!, any meaningful interpretation is diffused by the realization that it’s all a pop culture in-joke.

That’s what I think the whole movie is—an in-joke for film geeks. All the scenes have that aura, of having existed somewhere before Tarantino plucked them out of cinema heaven and made them his own.

And I guess I can’t decide if I want to simply glory in the “movieness” of the whole thing or if I want to be angry with Mr. Tarantino for making me watch a bunch of people die and then nudging me with his elbow like he expects me to laugh at the whole thing.