Guy Ritchie’s film “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Affairs” about the secret mission of British special forces during the Second World War will be released in Russia on April 25. It is based on a true story, but the director only left a picture of it. The press is comparing the new British film with Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglorious Basterds” – there was also a special team that fought the Nazis, only it was not British, but Jews America. Film critic Anton Dolin compares the approaches of the two directors – and explains why Ritchie did not copy Tarantino’s more complex concept.
Guy Ritchie’s new work – his fourth in the last two years – can more easily be called a “British version of Inglorious Basterds”. That’s what they write about her. Based on a non-fiction book Damien Lewis “Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The True, Explosive Story of Desperate Special Forces of the Second World War,” the director and three co-authors wrote a script in which both the main idea and the concentration of violence and dark humor refer to a film Tarantino.
“Ministry of Uncertain Affairs” describes the events of 1942. Churchill personally gives the green light to the creation of an unofficial squad of daredevils who will go to the Caribbean and blow up an important Nazi warship strategically. Therefore, all German submarines that are obstructing Allied movements in the Atlantic will be deprived of supplies. This operation was indeed carried out and became an important moment of the war. Most of the names of the main characters have not been changed. The rest is, of course, fantasy.
Richie will not disappoint his loyal fans. His film is again fast paced, frivolous, politically incorrect and funny (while you and the author have similar ideas about what is funny). It continues recently «Gentlemen»and early crime comics, and spy comics “To the representatives of the UNC.LE»where did the main actor come from – «a witch» and «great man» Henry Cavill, in the new composition, looks as little as his previous roles and the historical prototype, Major Gus March-Phillips.
A closer look will reveal features of a fundamental difference between the style and method of Guy Ritchie and Quentin Tarantino, which have been common for comparison for a long time, but here they have found new reasons. Starting with the basics: Tarantino creates a certain model, whether it’s Pulp Fiction or Inglourious Basterds, and Ritchie cleverly copies it, bringing it from the States to the UK.
Tarantino consciously builds his version of an alternate history from picture to picture, in which Jews killed the leadership of the Third Reich, black slaves took revenge on the planters, and the actors chase in an unequal battle of sectarians from the Manson family. This is how the director calls on cinema’s ability to change reality. Richie hides behind real facts and names to irresponsibly turn situations for the sake of attraction (this, of course, is nothing new – hundreds of middle leaders did this before).
Tarantino shows remarkable precision in details – for example, in the structure of film production under Goebbels or in the way order a beer in Germany and England. Richie shows sadistic sloppiness: for example, his spy is scolded for singing a song in Yiddish in front of the Nazis, and the Nazis themselves like to listen to “Mackie the Knife ,” a song by a Jewish composer. Weil to the words of a communist poet Brecht. Apparently, it is enough for the author that the song is sung in German.
Daniel Smith / Capital Photography
Daniel Smith / Capital Photography
For Tarantino, the plot of “Inglourious Basterds” is woven into a complex narrative with several time series, separate American, British and German lines, as well as a “film within a film” placed -in, at the first appearance of an assassination attempt on Hitler. taking place. Richie tells his story in sequence, having trouble being distracted by even the simplest parallel narrative and constantly forgetting about it. Tarantino regularly stops psychological development, allowing his characters to reveal their traditional pleasures discussions; Richie almost has the ability to give his characters individual speech characteristics.
Tarantino sets up a theme of unbridled violence, but surprisingly not much of it is on screen – starting with the extraordinary first scene in which the Nazi Landa decides to forgive a Jewish girl who escaped (she then becomes Nazism’s mistress); In the end, life, although with a shameful mark on the forehead, is given to Landa himself. Richie literally fills the screen space with bodies, constantly repeating through the lips of his characters how good it is to kill Nazis.
The choice of historical context seems to legitimize a collection of scenes of violence, which ceases to look funny and turns into an image of an action movie. It is somewhat inconclusive that the Germans seem not to have noticed that the entire garrison of the camp was executed (where there was, apparently, the only prisoner – a brave British officer). Whatever exploits our heroes perform behind the German rear, there is no stopping them from moving unhindered towards each subsequent goal – and on the way to ‘destroyed helpless and utterly stupid opponents.
More about Tarantino’s style
Tarantino’s characters are three-dimensional and complex, starting with Landa: this relates to the movie star sniper Zoller, and film critic Lieutenant Hickox, and Aldo Raine himself, nicknamed Apache. To distinguish Ritchie’s characters from each other, external attributes are needed, such as the funny round glasses on the Danish jock hunter: functionally they are interchangeable.
It is surprising to read in the end credits that March-Phillips and Marjorie Stewart (cast by Mexican actress Eiza Gonzalez as the seductive spy, as well as giving a enter the black non-profit character Babs Olusanmokun, clearly accepting the demands of political justice and representation, without being supported in any way by content) after the war marriage. In fact, during the main action of the film, they hardly show any interest in each other. In general, lively emotions on the face of Cavill’s character, decorated with a dapper mustache and beard, appear only during the killing of the Germans: he even sticks his tongue with joy.
Tarantino introduces at least two controversial and interesting female characters into the World War II film – Shoshanna Dreyfuss (Mélanie Laurent) and Brigitte von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger). For Richie, the heroine Marjorie is just a tool to seduce men, nothing more and nothing less.
Ministry of Uncertain Wars Official Trailer (2024) – starring Henry Cavill
Lionsgate Films
Tarantino stars as Hitler theater genius Martin Wuttke, who made his name famous with Brecht’s role Arturo Wee on the stage; trivial solution. Richie invites Rory Kinnear, famous from Bond, to play Churchill, made up without recognition, and also, just in case, includes a keeper of special heroes with the t -named M and giving him young John Fleming as his deputy – what could be more obvious? Perhaps the references to “Casablanca” are generally accepted in world cinema and have already grown through the teeth – compared to the whimsical scattering of references and quotes in “Inglourious Basterds”.
Tarantino has been looking for an actor for a long time to play the role of a Nazi criminal and he found the wonderful Christoph Waltz, who deserves an award at Cannes and Oscar: according to the director, without him he would not made Inglourious. Basterds. Richie makes the most lazy choice, casting Til Schweiger in the role of a typical Nazi (by the way, also played by Tarantino, but a less stereotypical role).
It also borrows the musical solution, straight from Tarantino the soundtrack of the great master of spaghetti westerns Ennio Morricone sounds behind the scenes, cleverly undermined by anachronisms like “Cat people” by David Bowie, and the Ritchie’s perennial composer Christopher Benstead simply copies the classics with familiar techniques – from guitar chords to whistling melodies.
You can continue for a long time, but is it worth it? Tarantino is painfully deciding which film it will be – his tenth farewell; abandoned plans to do “Film Critic”. refused, and the whole world follows his projects. Richie can’t stop releasing movie after movie. Without pursuing originality, he is happy with strong commercial results. And the more he tries to be like the “British Tarantino,” the more obvious it is that there is nothing in common between the two directors and never was.
