Título original: Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood · Quentin Tarantino · USA · 2019 · Script: Quentin Tarantino · Interpreters: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie…
It is now almost routine to say that each new film by American director Quentin Tarantino has become an event. From the same promotion of his films, There exists in the entertainment industry and its long line of followers a kind of anxiety to discover another new work that shows the product of its “almost” indisputable talent.. Leaving aside the extent to which the brilliance and supposedly novelty of his work has only been declining since the very distant Pulp Fiction, For those who subscribe to this chronicle, the interest in his cinema basically lies in seeing to what extent Tarantino can get it right and offer a more or less fun and energizing show and when he fails in the attempt. Personally, I'm not a fan of his cinema. His movies sometimes give me a good time, others don't. This does not seem to be the case.
Once upon a time in… Hollywood places us in the mecca of cinema in the year 1969. In this context, the seventh art industry and, with her, all American culture, is in the process of transformation. The emergence of culture hippie, the new canons of music rock and pop, The decline of classic cinema and the emergence of new genres and forms of consumption have left Rick Dalton, an old TV star now in decline, and his faithful friend Cliff Booth, a war veteran, boy for everything and, occasionally, Dalton's double in the action sequences of his films. Dalton and Booth wander around the city of lights between filming of minor productions looking for an opportunity to jump back into stardom.. While, next to the Dalton residence, the young fashionable couple has settled in the industry: Polish director Roman Polanski and his new girlfriend, actress Sharon Tate. Although none of them know, Their destinies are intertwined.
Among the best it offers Once upon a time in… Hollywood its two leading actors are undoubtedly found, a Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt who make gold from sequences that, as we will see later, They are not always as well-crafted as they should be or one would expect from an experienced director like Tarantino.. And it makes some sense that the person responsible for Reservoir Dogs has put a good part of the burden of this film on them, not only because of the irresistible promotional appeal of having these two stars on the bill., but because the very essence of the film was at stake with the choice of the two main roles. It has been highlighted in many chronicles that Once upon a time in… Hollywood es, first of all, an ode to the mecca of cinema and a form of entertainment in which the director himself grew up (Tarantino himself has taken it upon himself to highlight it so that no one misses it). And oda has remained, definitely. But, above all, What I think should be highlighted about this new work is that it is a tribute to a form of friendship (and a masculinity) understood the old way. A friendship that, like Batman and Robin from the sixties series, like Watson and Holmes, like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, if we put, is placed above personal interests, unbreakable to the adventures of life, a fulfilled offering to old values like loyalty, today in disuse. a tribute, besides, that serves Tarantino to make a radically fierce and sarcastic criticism against a culture that the film pilloris and that offers, to on the coast, the most empathetic and hilarious moments. In the case of the plot that occupies the film we could refer to the culture hippie that assaulted the United States in those years, but we could well see in all this a brutal and merciless blow towards what in our days we have agreed to call "politically correct" and that Tarantino destroys without concealment. A political correctness that, cover, hide monsters disguised as lamb, as was the case of Charles Manson, famous leader of a satanic sect who would end the life of actress Sharon Tate to become himself, in a very bizarre and delirious way, in media icon. Against it, Tarantino takes out his best weapons and dispatches (we dispatch) well at ease.
We also add in the credit column of this penultimate work by its director, truly stunning production design. Once upon a time in… Hollywood can be seen from many points of view. One of them is, definitely, that of serving as a tribute to a certain cinematographic and television culture that upended the form of mass entertainment that has been predominant in the West to this day. (All you have to do is look at the new resurgence of television series as a reference and fetish for pop consumption itself.). Tarantino revels in an aesthetic that remains very attractive today (Go to any fashion store window and you will see it.) also achieving the most difficult (with permission from Rohmer): immerse ourselves in an era without being confused by the costumes or the design of sets that appear impeccable on screen. But if there is something worth highlighting about this latest work, it is that it is a heartfelt tribute to those spaces in which that culture was developed and enjoyed.. Cinemas with matinees, autocines, the new fast food establishments, the car itself as a place of coexistence and countercultural identity, Tarantino dedicates many shots to all of them and portrays them with exquisite care and affection., although sometimes its inclusion hinders the progress of the plot, especially for a European viewer (or from any other part of the world) for whom these winks will have less meaning, Well, if there is something that is often forgotten, it is that Tarantino is a genuinely American director, like him blues, McDonald's hamburgers or Donald Trump himself.
Also appreciated in this case is the effort that the author has made to explore new formal terrain in his cinema.. Although it does not always succeed and despite certain redundancies (I don't know how many travellings there are feet in the movie), Tarantino struggles to escape his hackneyed fragmentation of action sequences, risking from time to time to step outside that comfort zone with which he resolves a good part of his cinema, lavishing with wide camera movements. In this aspect, The film is visually somewhat lighter than on other occasions. Tarantino also tries to offer a slower pace in the development of the story., testing a somewhat more contemplative tone (If the term is appropriate in this case). Also in the dialogues, and as he himself has highlighted in several interviews, The director and screenwriter has tried to show a little more restraint, giving up the long speeches with which he used to pepper most of his works. Tarantino tries here to get the most out of situations, but the lines of the libretto are this time more intertwined with the action and the moment of the story (despite some somewhat cheating games, as is the case with the now famous farm scene).
But all these virtues do not hide a job that, in its final composition, It is frankly leaden and, at times, infuriating. TRUE, Tarantino tries to be restrained in writing the dialogues, but that does not mean that his incontinence as a writer has been repressed, other way round. It's just that this time it is somewhat more hidden or concealed.. Start up Once upon a time in… Hollywood with a peculiar scene in which the couple Dalton and Booth meet with a producer who offers the former a job to star in a spaguetti western and give out, So, to his career. The meeting ends with a long conversation in which the characters refer to different situations or previous memories.. Well then, for some incomprehensible reason, Tarantino finds it especially entertaining to reproduce many of the situations that the characters comment on.. This dilates the sequence to the point of exhaustion and the viewer ends up wondering to what extent it was necessary to focus on so much childish detail. (and not always as imaginative as expected). This happens countless times.. In the same way, an excessively dilated montage of many situations does little to support the development of the story. It is enough to remember the much-discussed sequence in which Sharon Tate enters a movie theater to watch a film played by herself.. One recognizes the devoted tribute that the author tries to offer, but this decays into absurdity among so many comings and goings to other situations to settle a moment that could well have been resolved with many fewer shots.. So, that supposedly slow tempo that Tarantino tries to print on the film (waiting for the long-awaited ending, duly announced by the director since its premiere at the Cannes festival) becomes a cumbersome development. And not, This time not even the omnipresent and at times cloying soundtrack can lighten the drink.. The accumulation of similar melodies in a kind of endless loop, it ends up attracting, going from the notorious to the dispensable, Just as it happens with many of the scenes that the film presents to us..
Once upon a time in… Hollywood es, as the title of the movie indicates, a mere story. A story for adults, of course, but I tell, after all. A story inspired by a world that was and events that could have happened differently or that the director wanted to narrate as a way of settling accounts with his personal and cultural past. (just as he did in Inglourious Bastards). From the opportunity that fiction offers, Tarantino presents us with an alternative ending to a time to which he pays homage. But the show becomes downright tedious., blame for the lack of restraint of a director who has not known (the darling) measure your strength. For some reason, Tarantino insists on stretching a rickety plot to reach almost three hours in length in order to tell us an adventure that, from my point of view, you have a good handful of minutes left. And the fact is that the movie that could have been (If a good editor had stopped him) it's there, On the screen. We can build it very easily. You just have to extract it from the tangle of endless references with which it saturates us and whose value is very questionable if not as pure entertainment for movie buffs who love hidden quotes.. To resolve the mess that he has created for himself, he simply should have been in a position to resign. It would have made us have a better time. Definitely, Tarantino had a really good time making this movie, a personal toy framed within your artistic interests. However, This chronicler felt like when you watch a child play a video game console.. The child invites you to look, but it doesn't let you touch the controls. GERARDO LEON
