Django Unchained . . . Or, American Violence We Need

Between going to the beach and doing homework, this weekend I saw "Django Unchained," Quentin Tarantino's obsequy to spaghetti westerns, and an odd critique of American slavery.  I say odd because though the movie is a revenge thriller of the usual variety, Tarantino phrases it within the mythos of the American south.  That is, while one would normally expect to see a lone gunman wandering the west in search of redemption, Django is a gunman in search of his wife in the American south, particularly Mississippi.  Discovering she has been sold to a plantation owner who specializes in the buying and selling of fighting slaves (think dog-fights but with black men).  Since it is a revenge flick, everything you'd expect to happen, happens.

But it takes an odd course to get there.  From the trailers, it is obvious that Django allies himself with Christopher Waltz as a bounty hunter.  The buddy-cop theme is played to perfection, without the slapstick we'd normally expect.  Instead, we're offered a discrete rumination on the horror of slavery, the perverse peculiarity of this American institution, and the ridiculous contradictions inherent in the system. 

Despite all that, I thought it was a good movie.  A bit on the bloody side, with the Tarantino-esque ridiculousness of the whole thing, but it felt visceral and thrilling and downright amoral.  Slavery was the obvious bad guy, with various minor bad guys along the way.  The moral lever was tilted toward Django the entire time and despite killing men in cold blood, we were meant to assuage our collective guilt with the assurance that they were slave traders and guilty enough to deserve death. 

Nevertheless, I thought it was a good movie, and I would quickly recommend it.