Django Unchained

Nay Hinain

Personal rating: 8/10
IMDB rating: 8.5/10 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1853728/)
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 88% 


"The difference between Django Unchained and my other films is that it follows one character on a journey." -Quentin Tarantino

Django Unchained Critique

Django Unchained is a movie set in the south of the United States of America two years before the civil war at a time where racism was at its peak. It revolves around a black slave, Django (Jamie Foxx), who gains his freedom by going on a journey as a hit man working for a white, German, bounty-hunter, Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz) and in the process finds his wife who was separated from him to be sold as a slave. The film describes society of that period and includes many scenes of violence with an underlying comic tone.

The setting plays a major role in this film and marks a notable variation in Tarantino’s usual urban settings. Not only does the film show magnificent landscapes and vast beautiful scenery, which adds a major esthetic element, but also it seems to recreate all physical appearance of the period that it portrays. The ranches, the towns, and the costumes are all vital to the plot and add credibility to the story.

In line with Tarantino’s usual character depiction, all actors display the expected craziness, lunacy, and violence, which alternate in their behavioral pattern. Django -the main character- is a mixture of rawness and determination, while Doctor Schultz is brave and smart. Yet, in the scene where Django finally comes face to face with the 3 wanted men that are the reason of the separation between him and his wife, he loses his temper and snaps, taking out his gun immediately and shoots ⅔ brothers dead, causing the irk of the doctor. Similarly in another scene, the brave and smart Schultz was caught in a conflict yet overtook a whole town by shooting the Sheriff causing chaos.

The film is consistent with Tarantino’s reliance on showing increased violence and in this specific movie’s case, it is not so much an excess as in his other movies because that period of history in the United States was characterized with mounting violence. Tarantino himself says, in one of his interviews, that Django Unchained deals with “everything that America has never dealt with because it is ashamed of it”.

In my opinion, this movie was a great inspiration to directors to bring back history not sugarcoated and not modified to please audiences. If looking for a film that includes violence at a certain level with a historical backdrop and not devoid of comic situations is what you want, then Django Unchained is the movie to watch.