is fantastic. The movie is a revenge tale, told in extremely broad and vibrant comic book style. Motivations are large and violent, fitting the style of b movie cinema which it uses. The action sequences are fantastic. Particularly notable is the anime sequence. That part is as filled with wonderful imagery as the rest of the film, which is fucking gorgeous.
The criticism of the film is that it is a masturbatory exercise in b movie cinema with little human emotion. I think that if you level this criticism at Kill Bill, then you damn well better level it at Pulp Fiction.
The story is told in broad, operatic terms. Motivations are largely based on wholesale slaughter or horrific rape. This is just a different way of telling these types of stories, with broader, more iconic characters. The film is not afraid to be a grand comic book, and doesn't make concessions to this style. I think that this makes the film better than any of the other recent comic book films. It doesn't want to coopt the techniques of the films it references, it wants to celebrate them and use them to tell its own story.
This criticism, as exemplified by the NYT review, I find snotty and small-minded. Because the film uses the language of films which the reviewer is apparently too cultured to enjoy, it can be easily dismissed as an exercise in geekery. This is nothing more than refusing to enjoy the film because you're too good for it. It's unacceptable to reject movie genres and language like this.
The characters have unique identities and strong, well-explained motivations. In fact, these are very well intertwined. The revenge story is told in the main story of Uma against the assassination squad, in the story of her opponent's childhood misery (the amazing anime sequence), in the tale of Uma's comatose rape, and in the dialogue between Uma and Viveca Fox's kid.
It is much like a Sergio Leone film, but highly compressed in time, and with flying swordplay instead of gunfights. In the vicious, bloody, horrific world, there is honor and responsibility.
There is a consistent tone, a carefully constructed tale of revenge and honor, and strong, beautiful imagery. It's a really fucking good movie.
Posted by mattb at October 10, 2003 06:47 AM