Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 war movie directed by Quentin Tarantino. It follows a group of American soldiers called the Basterds who team up with French resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied France during 1944. Their big plan, known as Operation Kino, aims to kill Adolf Hitler and top German leaders at a movie theater premiere.
The Basterds are led by Lt. Aldo Raine, played by Brad Pitt. They are tough Jewish-American soldiers who hunt Nazis, scalp them, and spread fear behind enemy lines. In the film, they connect with Shosanna Dreyfus, a Jewish woman whose family was murdered by a Nazi officer named Hans Landa. Shosanna owns a Paris cinema and hatches her own revenge plot. She plans to lock the theater doors during the premiere of a Nazi propaganda film and burn it down with all the top Nazis inside. This is the heart of Operation Kino, which means “cinema” in German. The operation combines her fiery trap with the Basterds’ armed assault to make sure no one escapes.
The movie builds suspense around this plot. Shosanna dyes her hair, changes her name to Emmanuelle Mimieux, and flirts with a Nazi officer named Fredrick Zoller to get the premiere approved at her theater. Zoller stars in the propaganda film, which celebrates Nazi victories. Meanwhile, the Basterds recruit Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz, a German soldier who killed his own officers, and Bridget von Hammersmark, a German actress who spies for the allies. They meet her at a basement bar, but things go wrong when Landa shows up and spots a clue that exposes them. A brutal fight breaks out, killing everyone except one Basterd.
Despite the setback, Operation Kino moves forward. Shosanna hides flammable film nitrate in the theater ceiling and rigs it to ignite. The Basterds, now down to Archie Hicox and Donny Donowitz, sneak in disguised as Italians. They carry hidden guns and bombs. Hitler attends with Joseph Goebbels and other leaders. The premiere starts with a tense chapter card introducing “Operation Kino.”
Inside, Shosanna narrates over the projector, revealing her plan to the audience in the film. She shoots Zoller, but he wounds her before dying. Upstairs, the Basterds open fire on Hitler, riddling him with bullets until his face is destroyed. They mow down Nazis in the stalls and balconies. Shosanna sets the theater ablaze, trapping hundreds. Flames and gunfire fill the screen as the top Nazis die in this alternate history revenge.
Tarantino uses the cinema setting to blend movies with war. Operation Kino turns a Nazi film premiere into their doom, flipping real history where Hitler died by suicide in 1945. For more on the film’s alternate history feel, check out this analysis: https://www.sealionpress.co.uk/post/films-that-should-have-been-alternate-history-instead. The opening scene sets the tense tone Landa interrogates a farmer hiding Jews, as detailed here: https://www.avclub.com/breaking-down-the-glorious-first-scene-of-inglourious-b-1798259114. Vengeance drives the story like classic cinema thrills, explained in this review: https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/quentin-tarantino/inglourious-basterds.
Sources
https://www.sealionpress.co.uk/post/films-that-should-have-been-alternate-history-instead
https://www.avclub.com/breaking-down-the-glorious-first-scene-of-inglourious-b-1798259114
https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/quentin-tarantino/inglourious-basterds
