Psychic disturbance and the power of 'Pulp Fiction'

Psychic disturbance and the power of 'Pulp Fiction'

By Jason Tedjasukmana

JAKARTA (JP): Imagine turning over a rock and finding that the
weevils underneath are all wielding 9mm handguns. Such a
sensation awaits viewers of Pulp Fiction, a long-awaited release
that will rescue Jakartans from the summer movie malaise drowning
the city.

Winner of the Palme D'Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and
an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, Pulp Fiction has
caused just as much hoopla among American teenagers and senators
alike since its stateside release last October.

Taking inspiration from the crime fiction stories of the 1930s
and 40s, Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, True Romance) serves
up one of the seamiest depictions of the Los Angeles underworld
since Ridley Scott's Bladerunner.

Pulp Fiction, the second film both written and directed by
Tarantino, is three stories intertwined into a hazy, cosmic whirl
that approaches a drug-induced trip. The movie lures you deep
into the twisted psyches of several small-time criminals that
spring out of one of Hollywood's most fertile imaginations.

The film opens with Amanda Plummer and Tim Roth discussing
their lunch-time revelation that crooks never think to knock off
diners -- a cash-laden, low-risk alternative to the routine
liquor store and gas station.

From there we're introduced to a couple more thugs with
considerably larger firearms. Convinced that he's been double-
crossed, crime boss Marsellus Wallace (played by Ving Rhames)
sends Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel
Jackson) to retrieve his stolen briefcase, the contents of which
are never revealed. The encounters that follow are something
Tarantino likens to a work of fine art:

"I like the idea of working on a large canvas. I like the idea
of playing with the rules that apply to novels and applying them
to cinema because I think the translation can be very cinematic.
One thing that certain novelists do that I really get a kick out
of, like Larry McMurty or J.D. Salinger, is to have characters
float in and out of all their books."

Superfly

At 32-years-old, Tarantino already appears to be a veteran in
the gangster film genre. But where his much-acclaimed first film
Reservoir Dogs owed more to the plodding pace of Stanley
Kubrick's The Killing and Jean Paul Melville's Bob le Flambeur,
two ground-breaking classics of the 1950s, Pulp Fiction looks to
the blaxpoitation flicks of the 1970s circa Cleopatra Jones and
Superfly for gritty texture, abusive language and a funked-out
soundtrack.

Tarantino brilliantly uses a melange of styles, stories and
music to create an undefinable time period. Characters that look
like they just stepped out of Saturday Night Fever (one of the
many Travolta films that Tarantino admires) are endowed with, or
cursed by, a nineties sensibility. Lead characters from one
segment play supporting roles in others. Despite the mayhem, the
scenarios converge to form a plausible story of tragic black
comedy proportions.

Tarantino intensifies the film's already macabre atmosphere
through unexplained insertions of unsavory characters and
disturbing sequences that ferment in the viewers' imaginations
(witness The Gimp, a muzzled human being allowed to live for
sadomasochistic rituals; and Jody, a character played by Rosanna
Arquette with more holes in her body than the Trevi Fountain).

Each crime committed, however, is not without it consequences,
and the director goes to great lengths to steer clear of the
standard Hollywood treatment. "Let's say you're being chased by
the cops, and you yank somebody out of the car to get away, but
maybe their seat belt gets stuck, or maybe they drive a stick and
you don't. Its the messy little things that are actually funny."
Tarantino adds, "I wanted to stay in that moment. I like not
making it easy by cutting away."

Le Big Mac

Long takes and intense close-ups draw the viewer in to an
uncomfortably close range, as if dropping the microscope down on
the shallow end of the gene pool. In one scene, Vincent explains
to his partner Jules the international cachet of the Quarter
Pounder with Cheese, which the McDonalds in Paris have elevated
to a more sophisticated Royale with Cheese. "They changed the
name because they got the metric system over there," reasons
Jules, clearly amused by this gem of French logic.

Working such insipid conversations into one bizarre situation
after another, Tarantino creates a world that straddles reality
and disbelief. The characters resemble the loser-next-door while
also assuming larger than life personalities. Samuel Jackson
(Jungle Fever, Die Hard with a Vengeance) deserves special
mention for his riveting performance as Jules, a henchman
possessed by the wrath of God. Looking badder than Shaft in his
navy suit and nappy hair, Jules is partial to the fire and
brimstone rhetoric of Ezekiel, from which he mercilessly recites
before sending his victims on to the next life.

Tarantino's script of highly-stylized, off-kilter dialog
carries the film briskly, though it consequently leaves the
viewer distant from any recognizable reality. The detached
feeling is reinforced by some fantastic sets, most notably the
sprawling 50s-inspired eatery called Jack Rabbit Slim's. David
Wasco, who also worked on Reservoir Dogs, designed the set, which
can only be described as an Arnold's on acid. Tim Roth and Harvey
Keitel also returned to work with Tarantino, whose ability to
assemble such a powerful cast of actors (including Bruce Willis,
Christopher Walken and Uma Thurman) is a testament to his new
stature as one of Hollywood's hottest properties.

Ultimately, Tarantino elevates pop culture and a retro-
fascination with the 70s to psychedelic heights, a trend much in
vogue with today's Hollywood establishment (see, not literally,
The Brady Bunch Movie, Addams Family, etc.) Joining the
directorial ranks of such enormous young talents as Hal Hartley
and Nick Gomez, Tarantino has undeniably injected new life into
mainstream Hollywood and its factory of formulaic action
thrillers. Call it a celebration of the mindless or the new wave
of American cinema, Pulp Fiction has clearly staked out a
territory of its own.