oldandrew wrote:


Two points.

The film begins with a long, dramatic and very memorable scene resulting in the murder of a Jewish family, so I disagree with the suggestion that there are no scenes of Nazi brutality.

As to the message of the film, to me it was a simple one: killing Nazis is a good thing in itself and Nazism is inherently unforgiveable. The message is hammered home pretty hard, so it baffles me that so many people seem to have missed it. I can only assume that we are perhaps too liberal-minded for such a message these days and we'd sooner see all war as unnacceptable rather than suggest that some people actually deserve a violent end.

I also disagree about the "revenge" angle. Shosanna does not focus on the man who killed her family, she tries to kill the Nazi high command. Killing Nazis is not about revenge, it is a good in itself. I think the film is clearest in this regard when dealing with the character of Stiglitz. There is no suggestion he has any personal history that drove him to kill Nazis, he just does it because he thinks it should be done, and "the basterds" admire this attitude.