Quention Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown breathed new life into stagnant genres with ironic reverence and a distinct presentation. The director, who himself imitates old films with refreshing originality, has his own host of mimics (ahem, Guy Ritchie) who put the cinematic pieces in place but miss what that makes Tarantino’s work challenging and delectable. With last Fall’s Kill Bill Vol. 1 and now with Kill Bill Vol. 2, Tarantino again shows his creative wit and singularity.
Last October, Kill Bill Vol. 1 was an homage of the highest order, invoking the familiar retro/blaxploitative flair of his previous work as well as the samurai canon, both classic and B-grade. The result was a two-hour slash-’em-up cultural referent that saw the Bride, Uma Thurman, dicing her way through former members of her Deadly Viper’s Assassin Squad on a mission of vengeance. The rampage culminates in a final showdown with Bill (Charlie to her Angel), who shot her in the face and left her for dead in an El Paso wedding chapel. Familiar banter, gore, genre-bending, and erudite musical selection followed.
The tone for the Kill Bill was clearly established. Yet, somehow the film transcended its now-familiar devices as well as the violence that in the hands of other directors would have overshadowed the craft involved in the film. Make no mistake, Vol. 1 was a work of art, an homage and master class in style, at once tactile, hypnotic, glossy, and brutal. It also left us hanging with only two targets checked off on a hand-scrawled shopping list of five.
Following the logic of Sergio Leone, who based his Spaghetti Westerns on Kurasawa’s samurai epics, Tarantino styles Vol. 2 as a magisterial western, complete with arid panoramas and requisite Ennio Morricone score. The film was shot as one behemoth, but broken in half for release. This has the beneficial effect of rendering Vol. 1 the first act of a melodrama-merely whetting the appetite and setting the stage for the arc and denouement of the sprawling Vol. 2.
The Bride, who’s name is unveiled in one of dozens of full-bodied side and back plots, continues her rampage into the California desert, confronting two of her would-be murderers on her path to Bill and his chic Santa-Fe manor.
Tarantino carries the mantle as Hollywood’s Billy Beane, precisely trolling the benches and byways of cinema in order to unearth the finely-tuned ensemble of unlikely players. They include Kung Fu’s David Carradine as Bill, who gives that role a gravelly, well-worn authenticity, and Darryl Hannah, who is as physically-devastating as ever as rival sword-slinger Elle Driver. Michael Madsen emerges in full mulletude and the inimitable Gordon Liu boasts an impressive Fu Manchu as the brutal sensei Pai Mae.
The sequencing and casting-Thurman in particular-add a vibrant honesty to the film, but it is Tarantino’s attention to atmosphere that gives the film the lush texture that makes it both a gleeful ride as well as a genuine artistic enterprise. As usual, the score and soundtrack selection are finely calibrated, with crisp surf guitars, battered country, and foreboding strings punctuating the fluid and plentiful dialogue. Moreover, the wide angles recall the the vertiginous landscapes of Lawrence of Arabia, and are contrasted side-by-side with brittle zooms that elevate the grit of a trailer-trash margarita, and the terror of the Bride’s premature entombment to astonishing clarity and scale.
It is, ultimately, in these details-the rich, indulgent precision in atmospherics-that Tarantino excels. In using the vehicle of homage to simultaneously torment and allure the audience, unfurling a samurai/western love story of such ambitious proportions, Tarantino succeeds in creating a post-modern pastiche wholly his own. This dedication to craft is rarely seen these days, and Vol. 2 raises the bar in a tired time for American film.
