In Quentin Tarantino's seventh film, the slavery-era set blaxploitation spaghetti-western Django Unchained, there is a chilly, winter-set scene where escaped slave Django (Jamie Foxx) and his German mentor Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) discuss the myth of a soldier climbing an impossible mountain to save a beautiful princess. Myth has always been a familiar motif in the two genres mashed-up to create what will probably be remembered as one of Tarantino's most powerful, funny and cinematically sumptuous opuses; we recall the swagger of the heroes in many a 70's funky action flick starring Richard Roundtree or Pam Grier and the legendary, mysterious cowboys of Sergio Leone westerns. Like a musician or DJ that can write a tune that yields a transcendent eclecticism, Tarantino writes and directs his films with a fervor that at once feels familiar but always carries the energy of a truly creative, original voice. Django Unchained is at once another reminder of Tarantino's fully formed intellect as a director of sublimely entertaining genre-subverting pleasures and an ode to the unmerciful, vengeful American hero.
At just under three hours, Django Unchained may try the patience of a fair number of filmgoers, but like Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds, most will revel in the myriad of classically familiar archetypes and technical flourishes that inform the arguably-campy but shockingly brutal tone of the film. It is the epic tale of Django's excessively violent rise from slavery to save his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from the clutches of her new owner, the pretentious, flamboyant and powerful Mississippi plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, who delivers a stunningly memorable, award-worthy performance). Tarantino shoots among vast, desolate vistas, lensed by regular cinematographer Robert Richardson recalling The Good the Bad and the Ugly and sets scenes to an anachronistic, groove-heavy soundtrack that includes modern stars Rick Ross and John Legend alongside some old-school spaghetti-western inspired soul tunes. Django's journey is one that initially feels raw and new, but leaves us with a nostalgia that is instantly recognizable.
Tarantino's filmography has been consistently debated for its use of uncompromisingly bloody violence and harsh, sometimes intensely profane language. Here, the director outdoes himself, amounting to perhaps a self-lamentation on his own thirst for pulpy, transgressive material. In doing so, much like this year's The Cabin in the Woods, audiences will see a lot of their own bloodlust projected back onto them; accusations have already been flung, decrying Tarantino's pursuit to find new ways to explode human bodies with big guns and his extremely liberal use of the "N-word" out of the mouths of both black and white characters.
What matters most importantly is not that the film is historically "accurate" (reminder: this is the man that killed Hitler in his previous film), but that it reflects the inherently political and fundamentally American obsession with violent retribution as a means of conquering an oppressor. This is a theme that has carried through Tarantino's work since Kill Bill Vol.1, the director having now dissected the essential B-movie tropes of martial-arts films, World War II action flicks, spaghetti-westerns and blaxploitation films to unravel the underlying violence that permeates the quintessential hero's journey as a measure of their willingness to, as Django puts it so succinctly in this film, "get dirty." Django Unchained works so well and entertains so thoroughly because it wears pop-culture's absurdly twisted yearning for revenge right on its blood-splattered sleeve and asks crucial, heady questions about the cultural and historical implications of a dark time in American history.
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