Inglourious Basterds review I Full Cannes Film Festival coverage

Quentin Tarantino swaggered back to the scene of his greatest triumph yesterday with a Second World War revenge film that critics at the Cannes Film Festival greeted with relief and cheers.

Inglourious Basterds, set in Nazi- occupied France, is a violent, occasionally funny love letter to cinema filmed in four languages and starring Brad Pitt. To judge by the crush before the first screening yesterday, it was the most eagerly awaited film of the festival so far. Early reviews veered wildly from ecstatic praise to crushed disappointment, but the consensus was that although it is far from the director’s greatest achievement it should prove enough to rescue his stalled career.

Tarantino fretted away at the script for ten years, and the project took on increasing personal significance as the other films that he made in the meantime proved less and less successful.

The former video shop worker was seen as one of the most original voices in cinema after he burst on to the scene with his first film, Reservoir Dogs, 17 years ago. Tarantino wrote, starred in and directed the film at the age of 29.

He won the Palme d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, with his second effort, Pulp Fiction, in 1994. Both works were notable for their snappy dialogue, thrilling but obscure soundtracks and observations on male relationships.

With Jackie Brown, a 1997 homage to the “blaxploitation” pictures of the 1970s, Tarantino showed that he could create a compelling female lead as well.

Having produced three films in five years, he took another six to release Kill Bill, which was split into two films and released in 2003 and 2004. It was loved by some but attacked as bloated and lacking the spark of his earlier films by others.

His most recent project before Inglourious Basterds, a double bill of nostalgic horror films made with his friend Robert Rodriguez and called Grindhouse, was a $50 million box office disaster.

A self-confessed geek, Tarantino has been in Cannes for the past week watching as many films as possible, and yesterday he spoke about why he would rather win on the French Riviera than at the Oscars.

Although getting his film ready in time has been a struggle — Tarantino has said that there is still plenty of time to tighten it up before its general release in August — Cannes “was always the goal, the dream. There’s no place like Cannes for film-makers. It is cinema nirvana.”

He added: “During this time here on the Riviera, cinema matters. It’s important, even the things people boo — it’s out of passion.”

Tarantino is adamant about one aspect of his film — the eccentric spelling of the title. “Here’s the thing: I’m never going to explain that,” he said.

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