Kill Bill, Vol.2
Apr. 26th, 2004 07:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakSo, Kill Bill Vol 2. A Western, after Vol.2's Eastern, and it left me with nothing as much as the urge to watch them together because you can see they were really intended as one film.
Considering that the Bride/O-Ren duel from Vol.1, as well as the preceeding one-against-many swordfights could hardly be topped without a certain sense of repetition setting in, I thought it was very smart of QT to not even try. (Swords are used by the Bride, whose name we find out in the scene in question - it's Beatrix - and Elle, but are almost incidental to the outcome of the fight, and that's about it.) The way Budd takes out the Bride before she can even use her sword is significant; new film genre, new rules.
Speaking of Budd, another thing that makes Vol.2 different is the depth of characterisation. O-Ren and Vernita are cool archetypes, but hardly more-dimensional. Budd, the next name on the list as Vol.2 opens, is very cleverly introduced in a manner that makes the audience see him as tired, self-loathing and pathetic, living in a trailer, letting himself be humiliated by everyone at work... and then, once Beatrix arrives, we realize she - and we - have been underestimating him. As a killer, not as a human being. At the same time, the cooly efficient way he buries Beatrix alive prepares us not to pity him during his own impending death.
The guys, nearly invisible in the first volume, do get considerable narrative space in the second in general - most of all the previously shadowy Bill. (Clearly both Bill and QT have seen Duel in the Sun and liked it.) Whose preferred weapon are words, words and the daughter Beatrix doesn't know has survived. Uma Thurman is so good in that devastating scene when Beatrix sees her again; it's that kind of emotional reality she brings to her performance that lifts the Kill Bill films above their "cool action flick" label. Conversely, giving the amount of dialogue - and monologue - Bill has, he could have easily come across as the parody of a supervillain, but he never does, kudos to David Carradine and QT's direction. Even the most gimmicky thing that happens, Bill's "Superman" speech - and here it's impossible not to think of Unbreakable - comes across as valid characterisation, as the distillation of Bill's nihilism.
(BTW, I bet the Smallville fans in the audience protested when Bill declared that Clark Kent was the disguise and Superman the reality.*g*)
Bill is the only one the Bride does kill in Vol. II (since Budd actually gets offed by Elle, and Elle gets blinded but not killed by Beatrix, a fact our attention is drawn to again in the credits), and she does so in the bloodless way he sent her to a sadistic teacher to learn. Considering the unabashed celebration of violence in these movies, it's all the more remarkable that the most remarkable choices, the ones that offer hope, concern the lack of violence. Tarrentino doesn't offer a complete U-Turn; Beatrix can't choose not to kill Bill, and Bill does have a point about her natural born killer instincts. But the morbidly funny and yet touching moment in the flashback when Beatrix and the other assassin choose not to kill or even wound each other because Beatrix has just discovered she's pregnant, her catharsis through tears and laughter in the bathroom after Bill's death, with her body crouched as if she gave birth to another child, do offer alternatives Bill is incapable of understanding.
Lastly, you've got to admire the symmetry: The Bride's fight with Vernita is interrupted when Vernita's daughter Nikki arrives at the start of Vol.1, and the fact Beatrix does not want to kill in front of a child offers us her first bit of characterisation. The attempt of the two women to play at friendliness for the sake to the kid before they continue trying to kill each other is echoed in the climax of volume II, as Beatrix, preparing at last to kill Bill, gets presented with her living daughter and a mock assassination game. And you just know that little Nikki will come to collect vengeance later on.
ETA: Update on my Theatrical_Muse activities, of which there were quite a lot.
Considering that the Bride/O-Ren duel from Vol.1, as well as the preceeding one-against-many swordfights could hardly be topped without a certain sense of repetition setting in, I thought it was very smart of QT to not even try. (Swords are used by the Bride, whose name we find out in the scene in question - it's Beatrix - and Elle, but are almost incidental to the outcome of the fight, and that's about it.) The way Budd takes out the Bride before she can even use her sword is significant; new film genre, new rules.
Speaking of Budd, another thing that makes Vol.2 different is the depth of characterisation. O-Ren and Vernita are cool archetypes, but hardly more-dimensional. Budd, the next name on the list as Vol.2 opens, is very cleverly introduced in a manner that makes the audience see him as tired, self-loathing and pathetic, living in a trailer, letting himself be humiliated by everyone at work... and then, once Beatrix arrives, we realize she - and we - have been underestimating him. As a killer, not as a human being. At the same time, the cooly efficient way he buries Beatrix alive prepares us not to pity him during his own impending death.
The guys, nearly invisible in the first volume, do get considerable narrative space in the second in general - most of all the previously shadowy Bill. (Clearly both Bill and QT have seen Duel in the Sun and liked it.) Whose preferred weapon are words, words and the daughter Beatrix doesn't know has survived. Uma Thurman is so good in that devastating scene when Beatrix sees her again; it's that kind of emotional reality she brings to her performance that lifts the Kill Bill films above their "cool action flick" label. Conversely, giving the amount of dialogue - and monologue - Bill has, he could have easily come across as the parody of a supervillain, but he never does, kudos to David Carradine and QT's direction. Even the most gimmicky thing that happens, Bill's "Superman" speech - and here it's impossible not to think of Unbreakable - comes across as valid characterisation, as the distillation of Bill's nihilism.
(BTW, I bet the Smallville fans in the audience protested when Bill declared that Clark Kent was the disguise and Superman the reality.*g*)
Bill is the only one the Bride does kill in Vol. II (since Budd actually gets offed by Elle, and Elle gets blinded but not killed by Beatrix, a fact our attention is drawn to again in the credits), and she does so in the bloodless way he sent her to a sadistic teacher to learn. Considering the unabashed celebration of violence in these movies, it's all the more remarkable that the most remarkable choices, the ones that offer hope, concern the lack of violence. Tarrentino doesn't offer a complete U-Turn; Beatrix can't choose not to kill Bill, and Bill does have a point about her natural born killer instincts. But the morbidly funny and yet touching moment in the flashback when Beatrix and the other assassin choose not to kill or even wound each other because Beatrix has just discovered she's pregnant, her catharsis through tears and laughter in the bathroom after Bill's death, with her body crouched as if she gave birth to another child, do offer alternatives Bill is incapable of understanding.
Lastly, you've got to admire the symmetry: The Bride's fight with Vernita is interrupted when Vernita's daughter Nikki arrives at the start of Vol.1, and the fact Beatrix does not want to kill in front of a child offers us her first bit of characterisation. The attempt of the two women to play at friendliness for the sake to the kid before they continue trying to kill each other is echoed in the climax of volume II, as Beatrix, preparing at last to kill Bill, gets presented with her living daughter and a mock assassination game. And you just know that little Nikki will come to collect vengeance later on.
ETA: Update on my Theatrical_Muse activities, of which there were quite a lot.
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-26 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-26 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-26 12:35 am (UTC)But at the same time, it would be nothing short of revolutionary to end here and leave the cycle of vengeance broken.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-26 08:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 09:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 09:29 am (UTC)Here is me, finally waving “hi”
Date: 2004-04-27 03:39 pm (UTC)I also noted the difference between two movies, and the fact that the sword around which there was so much fuss wasn’t really used here. It is more of a symbol for the just vengeance – vengeance as a double-edged sword itself. Yet vengeance – if it is justified never is a clean cut – it leaves others with the right and desire to exact vengeance, it doesn’t fill the void in the avenger.
so many more things to pick up - how The Bride, who is so cooly efficient in the v.1, is less so here, and all about making our choices, and what makes us who we are, and...
Re: Here is me, finally waving “hi”
Date: 2004-04-27 10:27 pm (UTC)Regarding the sword symbolism, I'm still chewing on the whole subplot about Budd pretending to have sold his (to hurt Bill? to indulge in some self-loathing? to encourage people to underestimate him?), and it turning up just when the Bride needs it - but it's still not what permits her to win against Elle.
(Though it might be what permits Elle to kill the mamba and survive...)