Review: Django Unchained

Jess O’Kane, Senior Screen Reporter reviews the hotly anticipated Django Unchained, the latest Tarantino feature to attract controversy for its explosive treatment of history.

A disconcerting fact has come to my attention: it is now impossible to talk about a Tarantino film without referring to the man himself. He has, it seems, become a kind of hipster Stephen Fry, only more closely resembling a potato.

Image Credit: Columbia Pictures

Such is the mythology of this man that he lends his films a kind of aura; an expectation of madness and greatness that few directors working today can command.

It isn’t surprising, then that the opening moments of Django draw upon a recognisable iconography; wide red credits cut straight out of a 70s slasher roll, while a rousing corrido sings of the trials of our hero.

But of course, this never was just a Tarantino film; directly inspired by the violent spaghetti westerns of Sergio Corbucci, it combines the horrifically cool anti-heroes we’ve come to know and love with a surprisingly traditional aesthetic.

That said, the film still very much carries the mark of its director, with a predictable lust for violence that would make the bravest Southern Belle falter. Tarantino’s style suits the period like a glove; an era of such moral complexity lends itself well to the conflicted heroes he creates in Django (Jamie Foxx) and Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz).

Image credit: The Guardian

The central premise of a slave recruited by a white bounty hunter to viciously murder plantation owners for money is satisfying in a laden white guilt sort of way. And yet at times there are touches of insincerity in its approach, particularly in the frustratingly two-dimensional character of Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), which left me cold.

Is Tarantino moralising? Is he desecrating? Is he making up for a disgusting segment of American history? What we are meant to believe, if anything, is never clear.

What keeps it afloat is the quality of its central performances, which buoy an often convoluted plot. We’ve come to expect nothing but brilliance from Waltz since Inglourious Basterds, and this second partnership is no different.

Here, too, he is freakishly elegant, happily blowing heads off here and there whilst posing as a cheerful dentist. Waltz has a preternatural capacity for playing reasonable men who commit frightening acts with great sophistication and intelligence, and he makes the perfect partner to Django’s own confliction.

Image credit: Rotten Tomatoes

Foxx shines as the lead, lending Django a vulnerability and passion that forms a coherent emotional centre in amongst all the blood and boot spurs. Still, he’s an effortlessly cool anti-hero whose conviction is strong enough to allow for the 3-hour running time.

Oh yes, I did say 3 hours. But then this is a film that is both epic in heritage and ambition; as much a warped expression of love from a Western fan to the past as it is a mad, bad Tarantino classic.

What it relies on – and what it eventually delivers – is the impulse to trust in the motivations of its characters. In particular, the storyline revolving around the capture of Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), is frequently nerve-shredding and eventually satisfying, even despite Broomhilda’s vastly underdeveloped character.

Image credit: Hollywood Reporter

But the biggest surprise comes in the form of Samuel L. Jackson, who plays Stephen, an Uncle Ben lookalike and lifelong servant of Candie. Jackson’s hobbling, wild-eyed form is at once threatening and vulnerable, and his complex relationship with his master shows Tarantino at his most thoughtful.

Indeed, it’s obvious that a lot of thought is at work here; there was never a moment that seemed unjustified or misplaced. Nor, too, did the treatment of the period seem distasteful or unrealistic, despite its eccentricities.

There will still be some people who question Django – its violence, its treatment of slavery and its motives, and it’s true that it is at times a little incomprehensible.

But you know what? I really didn’t care. After all, this is Tarantino, and when faced with his bizarre brilliance we can only sit back like wearisome parents and watch him raise hell.

My Rating: 4.5/5 stars 

Rotten Tomatoes Critics’ Average: 4/5

Jess O’Kane

Tribal or terrible?

Photo credits to focus2capture

The Safer Sex Ball is the one event in Exeter that can be guaranteed to generate controversy.
Whether it’s outcry over the outfits or cynicism over its cause, criticism always rises up. Some of it self-righteous, some of it misguided and some of it, well, really quite sensible.

The issue that this article takes to task is this year’s theme: ‘tribal’. The SSB is a fun event and not one to take seriously, but it is worth having a closer look at the theme to see any potential issues.

So, let’s begin by figuring out what ‘tribal’ actually means. A quick Google gives you a decent definition: “Of or characteristic of a tribe or tribes”. So, any outfit at the SSB this year will bepurporting to be representative in some way of a tribe.

The definition of a ‘tribe’ itself is more convoluted but essentially boils down to being a group. However, an analysis of the term in an African social action paper, Pambazuka News, says this: “In the modern West, tribe often implies primitive savagery… stereotypes of primitiveness and conservative backwardness are also linked to images of irrationality and superstition.”

I am not saying ‘tribal’ has to mean something racial or even cultural. Plenty of people have talked about wearing a caveman-type costume to the SSB and some are even going to use their own cultures as costume inspiration, whether being from Wales or from a ‘tribe’ of music-lovers. And that is fine. But when I turn once again to Google, the image results for ‘tribal costume’ are
almost exclusively of non-Western culture.

The problems with this idea of costume as representing a ‘tribe’ are two-fold. Firstly, taking bits and pieces from various cultures (a “Native American” headdress here, a ‘Zulu Warrior’ grass-skirt there) is disrespectful and reductive to that culture. It’s just not cool to ignore the genuine cultural meaning of those items and wear them simply as decoration. It’s not the same as taking various aspects of British culture because, unlike what the BNP might have you believe, Britain has neither been massively subjugated nor repressed. A quick look at history will tell you who has been repressed and a review of the British Empire would be a good place to start.

This brings me to the second half of the issue. If taking bits and pieces of people’s culture is reductive, then lumping them all in together as simply being ‘tribal’ is even worse. It is one thing to simply take inspiration from something, it is another to class a range of varying cultures, societies and people as ‘tribal’ simply because they are not Western and white.

Taking all this into consideration, it is clear that the ‘tribal’ theme has the potential to patronise and reduce non-Western culture to something ‘different’, as well as primitive and backward. We can all see what’s wrong with ‘blackface’, so hopefully we can all see what could be wrong with a largely white, middle-class, privileged group of people parading around in so-called ‘tribal’ costume.

Olivia Luder