Anatomy of a Film - Inglourious Basterds
Chapter One
Once upon a time…
In Nazi occupied France
Colonel Hans Landa cuts quite the figure. Decked out in the all black SS uniform, bright, white smile plastered across his face, from the very moment that he steps on screen, he makes you uncomfortable. Not only is the seemingly cheerful man a Nazi; an officer in the Schutzstaffel, but there is just something bout his mannerisms that seem off, manufactured in a German lab as a facsimile of a friend, designed to put you ill at ease in whatever situation you find him. He takes pride in his gruesome, genocidal work, treats it like his own little game, an intriguing puzzle for him to solve. As he tinkers with his victims, the only prize that awaits them is death, to be meted out at his absolute discretion.
To him, this day on the farm where the film opens is just another in a long line of brain benders, but to the family that he is interrogating, it is the worst day of their lives. Perrier La Padite is a simple, hard working man. He has a beautiful family, an idyllic dairy farm situated in the rolling hills of France. It is almost picturesque, greenery stretching through the background as the jolly Landa strolls up, a wide grin tearing across his face, with the quiet mask of Perrier across from him. We can see the joy that he takes in his work, and the horror that everyone else sees it as.