Is It Safe to Peek Yet?

Ed got home early again tonight, interrupting me as I began working on my post--which was after 10pm not at 7:30 as the time stamp reflects as I kept loosing internet access the first time I started working on this draft which began as something quite different than what it is now.

We watched Quentin Tarrantino's Inglourious Basterds tonight. Or rather we watched the first hour of it before Ed fell asleep the first time. I woke him up but within half an hour he was out again leaving me alone with a story I'd rather not be watching alone--if at all.

Scarry isn't really the right word for it though. Repulsive fits better. But I'm having trouble deciding if the story itself is what is repulsive or the honest depiction of humans at their most inglorious. In spite of the fact that the WWII Nazi occupied Europe setting has been iconic in film for fifty years as the pitting of good against evil with the Nazis and their allies as unquestionably evil and everybody else as good.

I don't know if this was Tarrantino's intent but what I saw in this once I could see past the gory violence and the comic-book like plot was sociopaths pitted against sociopaths. Rage and vengeance was at the root of every character's motivation and all were equally guilty of taking pleasure in their enemies' pain and terror. No good can grow out of that. To represent either Shoshanna's or Lt. Aldo Raine's acts as heroism is no less propaganda than the Goebbels' film featured in the plot. What I'm trying to figure out now is whether that is the point Tarrantino is attempting to make or just my bias affecting my observation. Or alternately, is it an objective truth that Tarantino's story alludes to in spite of his intent?

Another thing I wonder is how it is possible to infuse such a story with humor and why, in spite of my revulsion I frequently laughed? Well snickered or snorted might be better words and it was more akin to sneezing than laughter as it was often as involuntary and seemed to require covering ones mouth.

I don't know. But I think I need to try to find something else to think about before it is time for me to sleep. Which I don't think I'll be doing before the sky looses its black.