Kill Bill — Vol. One is one of the most stylish movies at the box office this year.
Kill Bill — Vol. One is one of the most stylish movies at the box office this year. Effects and camera angles are so inventive and clever that Bill could be a demo film for Special Effects 101. You can practically see director Quentin Tarantino pointing at the screen, telling us, "Look. Look here. Isn't this cool?" As a film designed entirely to draw attention to itself, Kill Bill outweighs even Memento in egotism. Admittedly, it is unusually cool — flashy, extravagant, as impressive-looking as a knockoff Rolex. Too bad it's not much else.
Kill Bill showcases the talent of its director and screenwriter. Responsible for unique hits like Reservoir Dogs and the venerable Pulp Fiction, he has spawned an entire cult industry around his abilities. Tarantino has been hailed by many as the king of independent filmmaking, next a historic tradition of great directors, and — in some circles — heir apparent to the entire movie business. His skills are evident in Bill. He is mastering the use of multiple media and is considerably gifted for at manipulating time. These two conventions will dominate action films in the very near future. However, Tarantino relies so heavily on his strengths in this film that his weaknesses become glaring.
Bill tells the story of a character known only as the Bride. Attacked, shot, and left for dead by colleagues in the Dangerous Viper Assassination Squad, she has languished in a coma for four years. Now she has awoken to exact revenge on the Dangerous Vipers by destroying them one by one. Her ultimate plan is to execute squad boss Bill and ... well, that's pretty much it.
Though the Bride is only halfway through the list by the film's predictable "surprise" ending, we get the picture: She kills everyone. She faces no serious challenges or moral dilemmas on the way. If she needs something, it materializes. If she is threatened — or even simply dishonored — the person threatening her dies. She has no partner or ally to confide in during this killing spree, so if she has any inner thoughts we never hear them. With the Bride's "story," Tarantino offers us no deep emotional truths, nor catharsis, nor a single moment of passionate feeling.
Like props or scenery, special effects were originally intended to support a story, to make it more realistic and honest or more emotional and effective. But one gets the sense that Tarantino wrote the Bride's story in order to hold his SFX together, to justify his usage of frequent title sequences, unusual camera angles, black-and-white shots, anime scenes, and time manipulation.
Even the excessive violence pursued throughout the movies fails to enrich the plot of Kill Bill. Over-the-top violence can be used to great effect in dark, disturbing films, enhancing the drama, the suspense, and the stakes. Put into a moral context, such action can provide insight into the evils, excesses, and paradoxes of human nature. Kubrick's Alex in A Clockwork Orange talks about ultraviolence, and we fear him; society destroys him, and we fear ourselves. But the violence in Kill Bill challenges no one. There is no reason for it to be there. The Bride and her compatriots kill, slash, and smash each other to no great consequence.
Nothing changes when the Bride's nemeses in Vol. One die. Things do not get any worse or any better for the Bride, for her enemies, or for society as a whole no matter how many Yakuza armies the heroine lays to waste. The plot points that serve as air and water to films in this vein — the balance between peace and war, the conflict between innocence and evil, the relationship between violence and sex, the question of justifiable homicide — are dropped in Kill Bill, to its detriment. The gushing, spraying, exploding ultraviolence in the film is simply another effect.
As much as Kill Bill depends on Tarantino's camera tricks, it depends on the shock value of this violence. Even for jaded, experienced American audiences, the up-close-and-personal killing shown in Bill is unusual. We are accustomed to seeing our heroes shoot or blow up the bad guys; seeing a person decapitated with a sword is a different experience. It's a clever diversion as well. It's designed to trick you into thinking you're seeing something unusual, something "indie," something good. The cheap adrenaline rush diverts audiences from the fact that they're being shortchanged.
The truly remarkable thing about this gamble was that it worked. But drop the window dressing, forget about Pulp Fiction, and ignore Tarantino's reputation as the Next Big Thing and Kill Bill becomes something you wouldn't waste 10 bucks on. Even the best moments in Bill seem a bit like a parody — an elaborate, flashy joke on the movie that might have been.
Perhaps it's cheesy to long for the days when films struggled to deliver the truth about human nature, or at least an honest good time. After all, who goes to pornography for the plot these days? But when I look to the future of independent filmmaking, great direction, the entire movie business, I want to see something more than cool.
