Django Unchained (2012) Review

Or Tarantino Unleashed!

Me and Manface and Django Unchained (2012)

Watch the Trailer here.

So yes, the subject of the first post on my return was supposed to be Django Unchained (2012) so let's get right on that.

On Wednesday Manface and I went to the Odeon in Bath. That of course means two things;


1. Bath Odeon
Undoubtedly the most uncomfortable cinema I have ever had the displeasure of sitting in. Everything else is fine, don't get me wrong, but they do something to those seats to make you constantly wriggle. Maybe it's a new movement to combat passive viewing in the cinema? I don't know, but I go to the Odeon to watch generic blockbusters. If I want something special I'll go to the Little Theatre every time.

2. Orange Wednesdays
Now I'm not against Orange Wednesday in premise. It brings a lot more people into the cinema which I love. Cinema is communal. I think being forced to overhear and process the opinions of those you wouldn't usually share such insights with can bring about the best type of analysis. It is also for this reason why I will rarely read a review until after I have seen a film. I much prefer to have my own personal, internal (although despite the absence of the other party I often find it does get quite vocal!) debate with a critic than to have their opinions influence my own reading. I digress. The point is more bums on seats is fantastic, however you can always guarantee if there's a bunch of obnoxious cinema goers it will definitely be on a Wednesday.

So beyond that, woooo cinema!

Django Unchained follows slave Django (Jamie Foxx), now a 'Freeman' 'unchained' by his unlikely partner Dr Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a German bounty hunter. After Django shows promise in the profession Schultz takes him on as his protege while they save enough money over the Winter to rescue Django's wife from slavery.


It's a classic switcheroo. Just when America was looking with pompous disdain at Germany for their acts during the Second World War in Inglorious Basterds (2009), Tarantino flips the camera and suddenly through a German, fantastically played by Waltz, they are reminded of their own horrendous historical injustices through the slave trade era.

Waltz as Dr Schultz in Django Unchained (2012)

I cannot emphasise enough how fantastic Waltz is. His every line is delivered with a poetic cadence which is perfectly played for Tarantino's 'Shakespeare for the MTV generation' dialogue. I don't know the circumstances over his casting, if it was written for him or he was written in to it, but I'm pretty sure that you could write him into sesame street and I wouldn't question his presence. Not would I for a moment doubt that I wouldn't watch it with my breath held and heart pounding.

This man just gives me tingles whenever I watch him. In Inglorious you felt him like the presence of the monster under your bed as a child. In Django it's like the naughty little anti-heroes you looked up to. You know there's something not quite right with him, you know you shouldn't enjoy his brutal justice and the blase nature in which he exacts it, but you really do. Either way this man riles feelings in me I haven't felt since I was very small. That sort of terrified excitement from playing hide and seek in dark cupboards or scary woods. It's a feeling I thought I had forgot.

A special shout out has to go out to a certain cameo. Most will know who I'm talking about, but for people who like to go in as blind as possible like me, it was a genuine surprise to see him and he stole the show. Foxx was also wonderful, an odd concoction of childlike innocence, strength, hero, anti-hero, villain and pastiche that he pulled off well. Di Caprio played his typical villain, squinting, pointing and all, just with a different accent for once. Don't get me wrong he does it amazingly, but I'm getting a little bored of it and for the man who showed so much promise despite everyone trying to force him to be the heart throb, I expect a lot from him. Only because I know he can deliver with ease.

Back to the plot. Django is of course a typical revenge film following swiftly from Inglorious as I mentioned. It is also in the same way a comedy. (One particular scene with the Klu Klux Klan had the room laughing to the point where we missed half the dialogue!) I'm sure many will be riled once again at how Tarantino mocks and trivialises some of the biggest atrocities of humanities past, however I think it can in a way be the best medicine. 

Myra Hindley's iconic image

Of course the media best focuses on the evils of this world, I don't need to tell you that, and we follow the lives of serial killers almost like a teenager obsesses over every detail of their favourite pop star. We choose to repeat the same image and make them an icon almost like the posters we would stick on our walls as youths. The difference is the majority of these types of celebrities tend to vanish into obscurity. For the Myra Hindley's and Ted Bundy's of this world however, their image gets rehashed whenever the world gets a little dark. We almost make it a competition. We set the pinnacle of human evil like a bar to compare every one following and they do their best to beat it. I can't articulate any of this better than the hoax Morgan Freeman statement on the school shootings in Newtown.

The trouble with dehumanising iconic wrong doers, as well as historical events and movements, in this way is that we separate them from ourselves as man from the boogie man. We forget that the holocaust and slavery were enabled by the every day population like ourselves turning a blind eye, condoning, or even taking part in them. There is a scene in Django where the titular character does just this in order to perpetuate a ruse to save his love. It does not go unnoticed and is a horrifically unnerving part of the film; one which I found exceedingly difficult to watch. Other scenes are much more graphic and yet treated with hilarity. However, the tone that Tarantino sets here is superb, and carries more poignancy from a Director famed for his postmodern uses of indulgent violence as a badge for the desensitised video game generation.

Humanising and trivialising those ordinary people we can often characterise as demons is the best way to avoid giving them an almost mythical status. In the same irrational way we respond to fear, making an every day obstacle seem like an immovable mountain, we respond in reverse to laughter, making the impossible task of standing up against those evils which can so easily become the status quo seem almost simple.

I often rant about Tarantino. I love his films, but I get this irrational hostility when some hail him as the 'greatest Director of our generation' and what not. I believe he makes a lot of a noise, and in a fantastically articulate manner, but mostly about nothing. As beautifully filmed as his movies are, and as perfect the dialogue, a lot of the time they are empty vessels, no matter how wonderfully presented they are.


There's nothing wrong with this of course, but I believe film is an artform, in that it has meaning and a role in shaping the opinions and understanding of the population by moving them in certain ways. Film has a way of forcing empathy on to almost any mind with an accessibility that I believe no other medium has reached. To hail films about nothing as the greatest of our time, no matter how great they are, belittles that in my opinion.

However now Tarantino does seem to be making a point. Nothing groundbreaking of course, but it makes me happy all the same.

I am genuinely intrigued to see what he says next. 


8-Bit avatars courtesy of the Linkin Park 8-Bit yourself page. Check it out here.


p.s. Manface enjoyed it as well, which is very high praise!