Django Unchained

  



   I found myself an unexpected Quentin Tarantino fan with his Inglourious Basterds (2009). It was gory, violent and hard-hitting but absolutely terrific. I was able to appreciate the ways Tarantino plays with you as a spectator and what you have come to expect from movies. He drags out dialogue, shows you things in close-up that are not necessarily relevant or important to the movie as a whole and portrays characters with such depth that you find yourself admiring even the bad guy. I approached Django Unchained with the feeling that even if I shut my eyes at the goriest bits I would still be able to appreciate Tarantino's artistry and mastery as a director.

   The opening of Django gives an excellent introduction to Jamie Foxx's character Django as we embark with him and his fellow slaves on a journey to be purchased by rich white slave owners. We don't just get suggestions of how long and difficult a journey they were forced to undertake, but we are thrust into every part of this tiresome treck. We see the men's aching, cracked and bloodied feet, see the sweat pour down their whip-scarred backs, are given close-ups of their calloused ankles ripped by the heavy shackles. We encounter their relationship with white slave owners, and witness the maltreatment, abuse and disrespect that they receive. The opening sets the film up incredibly well wtih cool music, cool scenery and poignant images, giving the impression that this film is going to offer something cool and different.

   But unfortunately, when we are introduced to some of the dialogue, the film suddenly seems a bit sluggish. The biggest piece of dialogue that we are first introduced to is from Christoph Waltz's Dr. King Schultz. This is a man who I much admired in Inglourious Basterds, his Hans Landa was chilling, unnerving, violent and funny, a complex character upon whose every word you hang in nervous suspense. In Django, though, his dialogue is long and convoluted and even a little indulgent. It is nice to see him play the good guy for a change, but I can't help but feel that his complexity of character is wasted on the good. Or perhaps simply that Tarantino has written an extremely complex dialogue for a good guy, without giving much of his history away. All we know is that he is a good guy who makes his money by killing bad guys. How complex can a good guy really be? Despite this, thanks to Waltz's natural charm, he still remains hugely likable throughout the film.

   The relationship between Schultz and Django is one of the highlights of the film. It is in parts funny, emotional and powerful, and the training montage in the snow is the best scene in the film. At this point in the film the story has been in turns emotional and entertaining. Tarantino juxtaposes the hilarity and utter ridiculousness of the Ku Klux Klan, who's masks have been hand-sewn by their wives and pose great difficulty to their vision, with moments of real seriousness. Beneath the satirical humour is a real judgement about the KKK and all the powerful white men who thought themselves superior. Here they appear belittled and ridiculed, but still capable of perpetrating great violence. This hilarity is also sandwiched between moments of real heartache and harrowing viewing, such as the whipping and abuse of Django's wife Broomhilda, played by Kerry Washington. Tarantino invites you to laugh at these stuffy white men and their silly masks, but at the same time constantly reminds you of the terrible deeds that are committed at their hands.

   Despite the graphic violence, the film is essentially a beautiful love story, like something out of a German fairytale, as Django embarks on a mission to rescue his beloved wife Broomhilda from slavery. The journey sees him assume the role of Schultz's Mandingo adviser who surveys fighters and judges which will be the strongest and most likely to win a fight. This is where we meet Leonardo DiCaprio's Calvin Candie of the Candyland estate, a man who makes his living hosting Mandingo fights and buying and selling Mandingo fighters. And he also happens to own Django's wife as a slave.

   As always, DiCaprio is a wonderful character actor, imbuing Candie with a malice teetering on the edge of an otherwise friendly outward appearance. A man who is fiercly intelligent when it comes to business but whose ego and weakness for flattery renders him a little naive. He isn't the sharpest tool in the box but he could sure as hell kill you with a blunt one anyway.

   DiCaprio's otherwise brilliant portrayal of Candie is hugely undermined by Samuel L. Jackson's Stephen, Candie's long-serving and senior slave. His character serves as the comical respite in the otherwise tense and foreboding relationship between Candie and Django, but at times he was simply overbearing and quite simply not funny. DiCaprio's intensely complex performance was always underpinned by an unnecessarily stereotypical sassy diva remark from Stephen. Everything was followed by a "mhmm", "daym right" that I wouldn't have been suprised to hear a "oh no he didn't" thrown in there as well. I understand that Tarantino probably did this as a deliberate method of usurping what you have come to expect from movies and adding humour where it doesn't normally seem appropriate. This stops you from falling so deeply into DiCaprio's performance, constantly jerks you out of the make-believe of the story and keeps you focussed on the morale of the film as a whole. Nevertheless it was frustrating and did an injustice to the emotion of this scene.

   As this part of the film follows through, of course we know that the rescue mission going smoothly is too good to be true and there's going to be a show-down between Django and Candie. If the film had been brought to a conclusion in this scene I might have been more favourable of it. But Tarantino would not let you think it was over that easily. Instead we essentially watch the whole plot of the film again in the last half hour, by which time you care far less if Django manages to free his wife or seek revenge on those who have hurt him most.

   The film reaches its peak very early on and drags from there on in.  Overall the film just doesn't quite hit the mark. Other than the luxurious and catchy Django song in the opening sequence, the music is disappointing; the dialogue is cluttered and fussy; the film a half hour too long and just a little too much slapstick flying guts. However, there are some brilliant performances, from Foxx and DiCaprio especially, as well as from Kerry Washington, and Waltz is as charming and watchable as ever despite being loaded with such lengthy dialogue. Foxx is one cool guy, and that is one constant throughout the film. DiCaprio's performance at the dinner table when he cuts his own hand is one of the most intense I have ever seen, as he literally trembles with anger, pumped up with such adrenaline that he doesn't even feel the pain. He leaves you frightened and unsure of what evil he might be capable of.The film has its moments, and it treats slavery with such integrity that it is refreshing when most movies would rather brush over the grittier details of what really happened behind the grand doors of the white landowners estates. It makes a lot of social and moral comments, and at the very base is actually a rather sweet love story, but there's just something that isn't engaging enough to make it an instant classic.