Musings on history, alternative history, and theology based on the surprising final scene of Tarantino’s film.

Inglourious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino
USA, 2009

An SS officer arrives at a dairy farm in a French village during World War II, searching for hidden Jews. All the town’s Jews have already been sent to their deaths, but one family from the list is missing. Despite his pretense of making innocent enquiries, it quickly becomes clear that he has reliable information that the family is still hiding in the village. In the course of the dialogue, it emerges that their hiding place is actually in the house he is visiting, below the living-room where he sits drinking a glass of milk.

The opening scene of “Inglourious Basterds” is lengthy, brilliant, dramatic, and terrifying. The Nazi officer engages the homeowner in a mental battle. The fate of the hidden Jews, holding their breath so as not to give themselves away, hangs in the balance; they do not understand the conversation, which takes place in English. Will the dairyman keep their secret and endanger his own life and the lives of his daughters? Or will he rebel against his conscience and betray his Jewish neighbors who have placed their fate in his hands?

This opening scene is a moment of classic Holocaust drama. The viewer is convinced that he is watching a historical film set during World War II, and steels himself for the inevitable, devoid of optimism.

But the truth quickly becomes apparent. In one of the next scenes, we meet a team of Jews and their Native American commander (Brad Pitt), known as “Aldo the Apache”, who ambush, kill, and scalp Nazis. Their goal is to kill as many Nazis as possible and to strike terror in their ranks. It emerges that each of them is committed to collecting 100 scalps. They have another custom as well: they always leave one terrified Nazi survivor to tell their tale, sending home with a swastika carved on his forehead. The survivors’ stories fuel the team’s reputation, terrifying the Nazi political and military echelons.

Intentionally Fictitious

In recent years, no small number of WWII-themed films have been made, some of which deviate drastically from reality, prettifying – some would say belittling – the historical details. Films such as Roberto Begnini’s “Life is Beautiful” and even Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List” were generally criticized for minimizing the magnitude and centrality of suffering. “Inglourious Basterds” takes a completely different route – it does not minimize or whitewash anything, but tells a completely and self-consciously fictitious story.