Ladies In Action Pt. 2: The Bride Doesn't Play Well With Others

Quentin Tarantino is the kind of director that Hollywood needs more of. He is the nightmare party guest who dominates the conversation with his “movie talk.” He eats, sleeps, and breathes movies. He has an eye for style, an ear for dialogue, and a passionate hunger for all things cinema that he uses to create his own brand of movie. His film “Pulp Fiction” is not only a fusion of cinematic genres and styles, but has become an American movie staple, skyrocketing to greatness because of a director who is fanatically, obsessively, dillusionally, crazy about movies.
In films like “Pulp Fiction” and “Reservoir Dogs,” Tarantino strikes upon the right combination of his three signature components: dialogue, cinematography, and blood. However, his tribute to the Japanese Samurai film genre, “Kill Bill” lacks in character development, dialogue, plot, and narrative what it makes up for in blood and well-framed scenes.
He fuses traditional Japanese film technique with an ultra-hip comic book-ness and his hero is a Caucasian woman. This trendy pseudo-Asian inspired bloodbath is probably exactly the kind of movie Tarantino was aiming for. Unfortunately, like so many great directors, he loses his natural talent for developing a great movie in pursuit of technique.
It’s no secret that Tarantino made “Kill Bill” as an excuse to work with actress Uma Thurman who he refers to as his “muse.” But judging from the work she inspires, I would suggest he begin looking for a replacement. “Kill Bill” is practically a visual study on Thurman. It opens with a blood-spattered closeup of her face and throughout the course of the movie, examines her from every possible angle: feet, eyes, profile, bird’s eye, etc. In fact, Tarantino is so fixated on his mass-murdering starlet that he keeps her at arm’s (or sward’s) length from any of his supporting characters. A fatal mistake for any movie.
True, the fight scenes are done with a master’s touch. You can tell Tarantino knows exactly what makes a great fight scene- choreography, grace, respect, anger, poetry. You know this because he demonstrates his facility almost unceasingly throughout the course of the movie. It was as if he had a million ideas for how to shoot a martial arts scene, and decided to execute them all in one single movie. No pun intended.
We have the improvised Kung-Fu sequence in a suburban house, ending with blood and fruit loops all over the kitchen floor; the kinky young assassin in a schoolgirl uniform, armed with a ball and chain and a sweetly wicked grin; and the elegant battle scene with sword blades and blood accented against lightly falling snow. Any one of these would have been enough to memorably enunciate an action movie. As they are, I was left with that curious nausea that comes from eating too much candy.
Tarantino is a great director because he creates characters that are bigger than his movies. Nobody can forget Jules Winnfield from “Pulp Fiction” or The Jew Hunter from “Inglourious Basterds.” But it is precisely because of their interactions with the supporting cast that made them unforgettable. A single interesting character is a complete waste of time if she is not given a number of other individuals to work with. It would appear Tarantino is best off letting his characters inspire the movie, rather than the actors who play them.