Prairie and I watched Kill Bill this weekend — the whole thing, renting Volume One Saturday night and going out to see Volume Two on Sunday. I’d seen the first half already when it was in the theaters, but Prairie hadn’t, and it was quite fun to watch them both back-to-back. I’ve got to say that I think that Kill Bill is easily the best work I’ve seen from Quentin Tarantino.
Violent? Well, of course — it’s Tarrantino. After watching Kill Bill, I don’t think Tarantino could film someone getting a paper cut without attaching a spurting jet of blood to it (which, to me at least, is a fairly amusing mental image). It was all extremely over-the-top, though, to the point where it’s extremely difficult to take seriously (I joked at one point that the Kill Bill movies could be subtitled “Quentin Tarantino goes balls-out nuts”).
Watching Vol. 1 the second time, I was struck by how perfect of a decision it was to flesh out O-Ren Ishi-i’s backstory with anime, as it allowed Tarantino to present what is really one of the most disturbing storylines in a manner that’s in some ways actually more intense than he would have been able to do it had he tried to make it a live-action sequence.
Elle Driver is easily one of my favorite characters in the film, I think. Of the five members of the DiVAS, much of the time she struck me as the most snake-like: cold, unfeeling, and vicious — which made the few moments when she broke that mold (her moment of pouting after Bill tells her to leave the bride alive in the hospital towards the beginning of Vol. 1) that much more amusing.
The fight with Elle in Budd’s camper was wonderfully done, too, with Elle constantly unable to draw her sword out of its sheath due to the cramped quarters. I’m quite curious if that’s an intentional movie reference by Tarantino that’s been missed on the Kill Bill References Guide, specifically to the trailer fight in the Coen Brothers’ Raising Arizona. Not to mention that the bride’s final blow to Elle really caught me off guard — a perfect way to end the fight, but entirely unexpected (and cringe-inducing).
What really surprised me about Vol. 2 was the end, which was far more touching and tender than I ever would have expected from Tarantino. After around three and a half hours of violent, bloody revenge, to wrap it all up with sequences that manage to tug at the heartstrings without being schmaltzy was a surprising and perfect way to end the film.
iTunes: “Steamroller” by Pigface from the album Preaching to the Perverted (1994, 2:10).