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VOL.2
7/10
aka
Kill Bill Vol.2 : USA 2004 : Quentin TARANTINO : 136 mins
Yes, no matter
what you might have read elsewhere, the enigmatic-sounding "Vol.2"
really is the title of Quentin Tarantino's new movie. Except
it isn't enigmatic at all, of course, as everyone knows this is the second
volume of Kill Bill:
one single four-hour film (plus extended end-credits) and released, for
commercial reasons, in two separate chunks. The 'Vol.2' business isn't
only an affectation (though an affectation it certainly is) - it signals
Tarantino's demand that we approach Kill Bill as a single entity,
which will be seen for the first time at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.
 Fair
enough. Kill Bill does not warrant its epic running-time.
Given free rein by a remarkably indulgent Miramax, Tarantino has delivered
a mammoth and wildly self-indulgent B-movie. As has been widely acknowledged,
it's a pastiche/parody/homage/travesty of the cinematic genres Tarantino
himself adores, from Shaw Bros Kung Fu to Film Noir to Sergio Leone western.
But, above all else, Kill Bill emerges as a cinematic love-letter
to its star, Uma Thurman. Tarantino's characters seldom stop showering
praise on the looks and skills of her character (previously known as The
Bride, now coyly identified as Beatrix Kiddo) as she seeks revenge on
her ex-boss Bill (David Carradine) and his henchpersons who so bloodily
gatecrashed her wedding (actually, we're now informed, it was a wedding
rehearsal.)
And Tarantino's
camera (via Robert Richardson's cinematography) goes all-out to turn Thurman/Kiddo
into an ass-kicking screen goddess, with some spectacular results: her
no-holds-barred trailer-bound cat-fight with the equally Amazonian Elle
Driver (Daryl Hannah) is one of Vol.2's genuine highlights. As
is an extended sequence in which Beatrix is buried alive in a coffin and
left for dead by Bill's brother Budd (Michael Madsen). Tellingly, very
few words are spoken during either scene: Thurman is harrowingly convincing
as she stoically endures punishing travails worthy of a Lars Von Trier
heroine. But whenever she opens her mouth, the sound we hear is that limitations
being exposed: Thurman's as an actress, Tarantino's as a writer.
On the evidence
of Vol.2, the 40-year-old boy wonder would be best advised to either
work from other people's scripts, or perhaps seek the assistance of strong
collaborators (if only to say "enough" every now and then).
There's very little memorable dialogue over the whole of the Kill Bill
project - in the mouths of almost every character, the words ring
hollow, straining much too hard towards some juvenile notion of 'cool.'
Only the veteran Carradine seems to be able to carry it off - it's a little
like the way Ian McKellen made Tolkien sound Shakespearean in the Lord
of the Rings trilogy. Bill, of course, never appeared at all during
Kill Bill Vol.1 - and though he's a much more visible and audible
presence this time around, Carradine still leaves us wanting much more.
(Incidentally, it's now almost impossible to imagine Tarantino's original
choice Warren Beatty in the role.)
And too often
when Carradine isn't around, Kill Bill sags, padded out with superfluous
and infuriatingly tangential scenes - a decent editor could probably cut
the whole thing into nippy 140-minute shape with too much difficulty.
Because it isn't just in terms of dialogue that Tarantino's screenplay
falls down: there's something thematically awkward about the whole enterprise.
The project never quite squares the cartoonish violent-fairytale world
that the characters inhabit with the idea that Beatrix's emotions and
the pain she endures are real and worthy of our sympathy.
This mismatch
comes to a head when Beatrix escapes from her coffin via a technique that's
quite literally groundbreaking - but so howlingly implausible (magical,
even) that it's very hard to take anything afterwards at all seriously.
And while the fantasy-world Tarantino concocts is often intriguing, it's
frustratingly riddled with internal inconsistencies: aged kung-fu uber-tutor
Pai Mei (Gordon Liu) is amusingly presented as a quasi-superman - only
for him to succumb to a mundane bowl of poisoned fish-heads. And the climactic
Beatrix-Bill showdown is also notable for its decidedly old-school, lo-fi
conclusion - perhaps the special-effects department simply ran out of
cash.
It seems safe
to say that Tarantino's reach exceeded his grasp: then again, there's
little doubt that he has that rare type of sheer ability and swaggering
audaciousness that means his 'vision' of the project is pretty much what
we end up with on the screen. The Tarantino who emerges isn't an especially
endearing sort, of course: towards the end, Vol.2 reveals its auteur
as a reactionary sentimentalist, fond of cloyingly twee touches (on-screen
titles identifying Beatrix by her various nicknames end with one reading
'Mommy'; 'The Bride' character is presented as being conceived by 'Q +
U' - i.e. Quentin + Uma). And both heroine and movie go all goo-goo as
soon as Beatrix and Bill's moppet B.B. (Perla Haney-Jardine), at which
point the film pretty much runs out of gas. Instead of going out on a
high, Kill Bill sputters to a halt with a baffling final scene
in which great prominence is given to a TV cartoon about magpies.
Saying that,
the to-the-death confrontation between Beatrix and Bill is handled with
disarming elan - the pair remain seated as they clash samurai swords
- reminding us that, at his best, Tarantino is capable of
remarkable
things. He can be funny, surprising and vicious - occasionally all at
once, as when Elle Driver suffers what must seem, for the visual stylist
like Tarantino, a fate worse than death. Driver is, however, still
alive and kicking when the credits roll - it's teasingly hinted that we
may even get a Vol.3 one day, which would presumably re-introduce
us to the alluring Sofie Fatale (Julie Dreyfus) from Vol.1, whose
absence is a definite minus this time around.
These end-titles,
while as wildly indulgent as everything else in Kill Bill, do feature
a welcome 'picture-credits' section in which everyone who's had a speaking
part in either volume is shown and identified. This works like a whistle-stop
recap of a project which, we realise - for all the fact that this is skimpy
material is stretched way beyond justifiable length - has been sufficiently
entertaining, idiosyncratic and innovative to make the whole damn thing
worthwhile.
23rd April,
2004
(seen 20th April : Odeon, Gate, Newcastle-upon-Tyne : press show)
by Neil
Young
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