Django Unchained (2012) Review

I have only seen this film twice, once a few years back and again in March of this year and I’ve got to say, this film still stands its ground for me as one of Quentin Tarantino’s best films. Everything from the cinematography, the characters, the music, and even the titles beginning and end, make it probably my favourite Western/Action film of all time.

In a way, this film reminds me a lot of Inglorious Basterds (2009), another one of Quentin Tarantiono’s works which is one of my favourite War films, where you have many characters that lack maturity and behave like they are in a cartoon, death and violence being portrayed more naturally, as well as comedy that pretty much lands well when its delivered, things that Django Unchained succeeds with.

Tarantino really managed to capture that old Western style of film using plenty of zoom shots on characters when they are either being introduced or in a dramatic turn of events. But on the other hand, it does adopt modern day techniques of filming, something that I noticed in the action sequences. Near the end of the film there is a massive shoot out, of course with this being an Action segment, you would expect more of a metric montage showing people getting blasted at all angles, not giving the viewer enough time to digest the kills, but with this movie, the audience gets to see the whole thing go down, using techniques like wide framing, a lack of cuts and slow motion (not to mention the acting given by those being shot) to give the audience much more time to take in the kills and dragging out the uncomfortable situation.

Another thing I feel Tarantino really did a good job with is the characters. Something that I can always appreciate in any film is having believable charcaters with an equal balance of strengths and weaknessess’, and Tarantino did a good job with balancing our protagonist with those qualities. Although at times it did seem like Django was a little bit too powerful behind the trigger, its the primary subject of the film overall that makes myself and the audience WANT Django to be powerful.

I could go on, but to round this review up I would like to talk about that primary subject I mentioned, slavery. Tarantino really went all in to show how horrific humanity was in the past to those who had different coloured skin. While poking fun at the KKK and the average “Southern American white man” with a walnut for a brain, the film very much reminded you all of the time that this is how humanity treated those of different ethnic origin, and how brutal and disgusting slavery was. I can appreciate it when a film takes the audience out of their comfort zone and grounds them in the shoes of the vulnerable as it really creates a strong bond between you and that character you desperately want to succeed.