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I agree with the comments on the burial sequence; after a while, it becomes a waiting game, seeing just how long we're going to stare at the black screen. Very effective.
I enjoyed it, but am somewhat disappointed by the whole thing. For four hours of film, that's not a lot of plot. Reminds me of my problem with manga - you can tear through manga books at a rate of knots because there's lots of images for very little happening.
Anyhow.
It feels a bit peculiar with its pacing. The comment above about style representing geography - that's a pretty good way of putting it. The only problem is there's so much globetrotting in the second picture, that all the changes of style are slightly too sudden - the first film had about one groove and stuck in it all the way through.
I loved Bill. Wordy, yes, but he's a wonderful character. Not sure why I feel this. He demonstrates an excellent understanding of his situation. He knows he's a bad person. Being a bad person doesn't mean you can't be a good father - and he's a lovely father, even if he does let his four year old watch Shogun Assassin. The end, when Bill is staring into Beatrix's eyes knowing he'll die when he walks away is quite striking, because she, like Bill, is essentially a bad person - an assassin, a murderer - but she too can be a good mother. The thing that makes this whole ending work is that, in that final chapter, Tarantino manages to show that whilst Bill and Beatrix clearly have a deep-rooted love for each other, neither of them would bat an eyelid at killing the other. If Beatrix let her guard down, Bill would have killed her. Simple as that. He doesn't really want to, but he needs to.
That's the big thing coming out of the film for me - nature is rooted in us, and whilst we can all act counter to that nature, we can never escape it. Pessimistic, but it also means that Tarantino can be quite sentimental and show the joy of sentimental things. I love the scene where BB 'shoots' Beatrix; as a whole introduction to the newly-reunited family unit, it's great.
Interesting aside:
the reviewer from The Independent (in a dorky, irrelevant review) mentioned that she hadn't seen the first film, and she watched the second film first, and then saw the first on DVD for backstory. She explained that she preferred it this way around.
I can kind of see her point. To me, the second film is the story of Kill Bill - the Bride taking her revenge, how it happens. The first film is the legend - how the Bride gets her sword, the fight with the Crazy 88 which Bill rightly explains didn't involve 88 guys. It's mythical exaggeration. In the legend, Bill is absent; a goal, a MacGuffin. In the story, he's vital. When you see the story before the legend, you understand why the legend is so overblown, so exaggerated - huge swordfights, people surviving bullets to the brain and comas, the origin of O-Ren. Bill has to match up to the legend, and when we meet him, I think he does. Also: the story's what you'll watch once; it's the legend that will be repeated, savoured again and again.
The story is what the film's really about; Motherhood, human nature. The legend is a fun excuse for swords and violence. Seen like that, it all makes more sense. I just find the gap between the two jarring. When the credits roll at the end of Vol. 2, and you get a bit of the House of Blue Leaves fight... it made me want to see the whole thing again. I really think Vol.2 needed another, moderately large action sequence. Just one. For consistency.
Hmn. Not explaining self very well, but have been umming and ahhing since I saw it. I enjoyed it, it's pretty good, but there are all these gaps and niggles that I'm trying to explain. |
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