Glorious kill

There’s a certain duality about Quentin Tarantino – the idea, and not necessarily the filmmaker himself – that reinforces faith in his work. At least, among those who have followed him as an adroit dissenter building films around thugs in suits, whistling assassins, highway stalkers and other fascinating oddballs.

Tarantino represents an unlikely, engaging mix of sensibilities. He’s an impossibly deft writer, able to beef up the blandest of stereotypes with delicious quirks and attitude; someone who can have you hooked even to what appears to be wordy, drawn-out sequences. As Bill runs The Bride (Kill Bill Vol 2) up to the five-point-palm-exploding-heart-technique, he punctuates the narration with slow blows into his flute. It’s a pause-peppered monotone you don’t want to miss.

"Once upon a time in China, some believe, around the year one double-aught three, head priest of the White Lotus Clan, Pai Mei, was walking down the road, contemplating whatever it is that a man of Pai Mei’s infinite power contemplates; which is another way of saying, Who knows?"

Tarantino, concurrently, channels a free-spirited bludgeoner with a thing for the base, extreme torture and indulgent camp. Though detached as he is from his foul, murderous players – as reflected in the sorry, abrupt ends they largely meet – it’s hard to miss the relish with which he colours these men, as they hit orgasmic highs after head-on car collisions (Death Proof), rent out comatose women to freaks looking for kinks (Kill Bill Vol 1) and quotes Ezekiel before gunning hapless boys down (Pulp Fiction)

This dichotomy – both of instinct and intelligence – makes Tarantino an interesting artist, greater than who he is for ambition and universality. It also helps him connect with an urban viewer grappling with extreme instincts that seem to be in conflict with a moderate self shaped by social manner.

Inglourious Basterds also feeds off this trait. The premise – a band of violent Jews out to hunt down the Nazis in occupied France – is right up the filmmaker’s alley. Led by Lt Aldo Raine (a hammy, yet effective Brad Pitt), the boys clobber and kill through the towns, even as Col Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz in terrific form) tries to close in. Playing out in parallel is the double-life of Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) as she plots to avenge her family, eliminated by the ‘Jew Hunter’ colonel. The Basterds and Shosanna, on their own separate paths, are undercover at the premiere of a propaganda film made by Goebbels. The catch? Hordes of Nazis caught unawares on a happy film night.

The Tarantino essentials – randomness that tantalizingly builds imminent action, the bleakly comical (Goebbels’ eyes well up when the Fuhrer himself lauds his film), absolute detachment from the kill after the act (Raine steps on a dead soldier as he walks to make conversation) – are all there. Strangely, I was hoping for an off-hand reference to the Big Kahuna Burger. Bad idea.

Basterds, however, is short on characters. That’s a downer, considering what Tarantino has done with history – no spoilers here – and it shouldn’t have hurt to probe more into men on the fringe, like Sgt Donny Donowitz a.k.a Bear Jew (Eli Roth, all manic and fired up). This is one of Tarantino’s more organized efforts and its straight structure, at one level, may appear conforming to the tradition of other films made around the Third Reich. It only appears to.

Shosanna’s steely, audacious shot at retribution and the Basterds’ go at the Man himself make a stunning, outrageously imagined climax. As Donowitz fires at screaming, hopelessly cornered men and women, the action shifts to slow-motion. The gunshots are now separated by longer intervals. They are music on a close-up of Roth’s face, that’s at once tense, evil and aroused. Quentin Tarantino’s back. That’s not a bad thing, really.

Actor, again

An hour into Bhramaram, there’s a chilling, unhurried scene that captures the manic edginess of its protagonist. The man (Mohanlal) walks into a bar with a dopey, apologetic grin. He eases out for a drink with his “friend” (Suresh Menon) who’s already downed one or two. He sniffs off the glass and ascertains – with a bit of derision – that it’s whiskey. He asks for rum, two at a go.

The friend, still grappling with the swinging temper that seems to propel this stranger, says something that upsets the man. Drifting to a wise-man drawl, he tries to reason with the friend. There’s no hostility. He just talks. The friend insists. The drinks are on the table. The man swills them down raw, in one shot. Now, he’s a menacing hood who wouldn’t flinch before the kill. In about two minutes, it’s a Mohanlal master class.

Writer-director Blessy’s latest is an engaging experiment with the road-thriller genre. Bhramaram, even with its scraggy pace and modest production values, is a riveting detour that also feeds off some top-class writing. But what really gets it going is Mohanlal. This is the finest at work. The actor sheds the superstar buckram for a character that calls out for all the showy tics and sundry voice tricks that we’ve come to attach with “psychotic” men on screen. Mohanlal, though, is another breed. This is the smashing reinvention of a supremely gifted actor who’s far from done. I'll keep the faith.