In this post-truth world where everything is suspect, where emotion scores over facts and vicious disinformation proliferates under vested interests, where history is challenged and increasingly replaced by falsehoods, it is interesting to revisit INGLORIOUS BASTERDS (2009). Helmed by Quentin Tarantino, who undoubtedly is the most radical game changer post-Godard, the film conjures up a revisionist history (in an extremely playful, post-modernist manner) where the entire top brass of the Nazi hierarchy, including Hitler and Goebbels is burnt to death inside a Parisian cinema hall by a dedicated bunch of Jewish American soldiers who call themselves ‘basterds’, with the help of a young Jewish woman who runs the theatre. The device that they use for the conflagration is a huge pile of flammable film stock that is lit up behind the screen featuring a Nazi propaganda fiction film – the subtext being that it is CINEMA that causes the downfall of the most nauseous ideology, signalling the end of the 2nd World War.
You can revisit the film on Amazon Prime.
And to inspire you, here is the trailer:
Ranjan Das is a Mumbai based filmmkaer & faculty.
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