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'Kill Bill' a story of blood, Bride
the Collegian @ the Movies
Will Farnham
Collegian Reviewer
This is possibly
the goriest, bloodiest, most disturbing movie ever made, and
certainly the goriest and bloodiest from a major production
company.
Kill Bill, Vol. 1, Quentin Tarantino's fourth feature-length
work is not a film geared toward Hillsdale sensibilities.
Through this story, Tarantino
saw the opportunity to take his bloodlust to an entirely new
level, and he made the most of it. Decapitation, impaling, dismemberment,
shootings and rivers of blood reign supreme.
But Tarantino is not satisfied
by merely appalling our visible sensibilities. All of the carnage
serves to put forth a rather significant theme of the loss of
innocence. In several scenes, parents are slaughtered before
their young children. In the case of O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu),
a child becomes a  murderess
herself. O-Ren's origins are exposited through an extended anime
sequence depicting the murders of her parents and her subsequent
revenge. These ten minutes are
the most depraved of the film, and the most disturbing.
Much of the live-action gore is
so stylized and over-the-top that it seems cartoonish and almost
laughable (think of the Black Knight in Monty Python and the
Holy Grail). The animated scenes, therefore, come across as
more real than the rest of the movie, and thus more gut-wrenching.
If one can look past the wanton
bloodletting, the film is a work of art. Tarantino makes fabulous
use of colors (not just red) throughout the film.
Bold primaries make up many costumes
and sets. Particularly striking is a katana battle between the
Bride (Uma Thurman) and five samurai where all the actors are
silhouetted against a blue background. A
use of black and white film for several scenes, allowing even
the gory action sequences to become more character-centered,
is also quite beautiful.
Visually, the most impressive
feature of the film is the camera's obsession with Thurman.
When the scene cuts away from her, you are dying to see her
again. She owns the picture, and Tarantino wants it that way.
The tender intensity with which she is filmed provides an amazing
contrast to the violent intensity with which the Bride exacts
her revenge.
The story of Kill Bill is equally
impressive. Presented in Tarantino's
trademark time-is-all-screwed-up style, it is the tale of the
Bride (whenever her real name is spoken, it is bleeped out),
formerly a member of an elite female assassin team of which
Bill is the head. Pregnant, the Bride is to marry Bill (David
Carradine, whose face is not shown in this episode), but he
then orders her murder as well as that of the rest of the wedding
party. She loses the baby and ends up comatose for four years
from the bullet Bill placed in her brain. She
awakens in a fury at her attempted killing and the loss of her
unborn child, and plots her revenge against Bill, O-Ren, and
the rest of the team: Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox), Elle Driver
(Daryl Hannah) and Budd (Michael Madsen).
Pure and simple, this story is
about the Bride and revenge. We learn very little about the
other characters before they die, which is surprising given
Tarantino's previous films, but then again, there is more to
come in Vol. 2. The lack of depth to some of the characters
does not detract from the story, however. A friend of mine commented
upon leaving the theatre, "I'm angry. I hated this movie,
but now I have to go see the second part to find out what happens."
This movie ropes you in with its intrigue and beauty while pushing
you away with its gratuitous violence.
This movie is actually only half
of the overall picture Kill Bill. Word is Miramax forced Tarantino
to chop the movie in twain because most people would not be
able to stomach three and a half hours of it in one sitting.
Miramax was probably right.
I'm giving Kill Bill, Vol. 1 four
stars out of five. If Quentin Tarantino is the god of your cinematic
universe, add a star. If you have a weak stomach, remove a star
and a half. If you think Tarantino symbolizes everything wrong
with modern society and should be shot on sight, take away three
stars. If you fit none of those
categories and have yet to see Tarantino in action, I strongly
recommend trying Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs on for size
before you attempt Kill Bill. Otherwise, I'll see you all at
Vol. 2.
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Will Farnham:
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