Perfect Films

I wanted to wait until today to make this blog entry, this is because I had the chance to see an advanced screening of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN last night and I wanted to be able to comment on this. I am a huge fan of the Coen Brothers, though they are certainly not pulp filmmakers, I knew from reading the story before seeing this film that for justice to be done there would have to be pulp elements to the film. The blood certainly does pour freely in this film, after the final frame of the credits, Josh Brolin came into the theatre and answered questions. After recieving a question on doing Planet Terror, he commented on the different feelings violence in cinema can give a viewer. He said after watching No Country, he felt he wanted to walk out of the theatre and hug his children. He commented on Planet Terror as a film which makes people feel all powerful and intersted in hurting others. With both films violence plays a character, and there are pulp/shock value moments in both films. The difference comes in response from character. In Planet Terror we are essentially watching a video game, adrenaline junkies were the target of this film. It builds a world around us where the characters can go through any number of things and they can still come out the other end seemingly unscathed. What we see in NO COUNTRY is the horror of violence. The effects it has on people and the effect it has on those whom they love. Each bullet wound, is just that, and when you get wounded too many times, or in the right place, you die. In this film, the characters all have their own way of dealing with a reckloose killer who shows no signs of sanity, but follows an all too realistic code. Each bullet wound has to be cleaned, and the bullet has to be removed, shown in the ultimate amount of pain to the character.
These two films represent entirely different things in filmmaking. They both make me cringe at the time when I see a wound, and see strong acts of violence.

KILL BILL

Kill Bill is a film that energetically lets you know the feel of the film within the first two minutes. Tarantino has an ability to hook the audience in his early scenes. This is something to be praised, when I first watched Reservoir Dogs even though we start out with a ten minute conversation the subject matter, or lack there of is still something continuously fascinating. Although Tarantino is not the first to do any of the “trademarks” we see in his movie, he does seem to have the ability to do it better. Taking genres that are traditionally stamped with a schlock cinema warning, he is able to tackle the themes lying underneath and bring out something more.
In Kill Bill we are presented with a very simple plot, a nameless pregnant bride trying to the people who left her bloodied beaten and childless on her wedding day. Tarantino is instantly able to up the stakes in his films, creating the image of a suffering bride taking a bullet through the back of her head is not the type of visual that we are soon to forget. In a story of vengeance there is a requirement to start the audience out with an idea of why they are seeking vengeance, here he does this to perfection.
Though Tarantino is widely recognized as a violent filmmaker, Kill Bill is the first time where he has portrayed violent action scenes. He seems as at home as he did with his construction of Pulp Fiction. He still runs back to some of his trademarks, non-linear narrative. Here it seems to serve less of a purpose, but he is clearly aiming for a more stylized vision and putting the end of the movie at the beginning seems to help emphasize this note.
He shows his continued devotion to very strong female characters. Uma Thurman taking on the role of someone trying to live an ordinary life, only to have it all stripped away from her. Here he never falls to the typical symptom of a male director trying to pick apart the mind of a female character. He presents the bride character as someone stronger than all of her counter parts. Her endless determination can be boiled down into one seen when she lies in the back of a truck after surviving a near rape. She lays there, with her muscles completely atrophied, and she focuses on the seemingly simple but equally impossible task of wiggling her big toe.
The movie is determination at every stage, there is not point in the film when The Bride isn’t portrayed as a totally cognizant individual, no matter what the odds she has a complete understanding of what she has to do next. Through this, Tarantino also delves into the idea of violence in society and joy and intensity that twinkles in the brides eyes when she kills one of her foes.
What ends up making Kill Bill so special is the ability to push the package as far as any other piece of pulp cinema. But here he remains so faithful to the underlying themes of strength and determination, that if we are able to analyze the film than we can understand that the violence is only a background for character. This is a tradition for Tarantino, and he doesn’t disappoint in this effort.