'Pulp Fiction' review

“And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee”

Sometime in 2016, I watched Pulp Fiction for the first time with a friend of mine and always wondered to myself, “What is this movie even about?” To break down that question, you have to watch the film and then piece it all together like a puzzle. The film itself is nonlinear, but each story somehow fits with the other. The director, Quentin Tarantino makes this work, even though it is confusing.

Out of all the stories, “The Bonnie Situation” is most likely my personal favorite and makes sense with the plot. In “The Bonnie Situation,” the two main protagonists, Vincent and Jules have accidentally killed someone, associated with an earlier character, in their car and are desperate to have it cleaned. Vincent and Jules drive to a friend, Jimmy, who is played by the director himself, Tarantino. At Jimmy’s house, they try to figure out how to get the car cleaned and dispose of the body. However, this all needs to be done before Jimmy’s wife Bonnie comes back home from work. Bonnie works the graveyard shift at the hospital and does not need to be put in a situation that might end up with her divorcing Jimmy, so he says. Jules calls his employer, Marsellus, and he sends his personal “cleaner” to fix the problem. The car is cleaned and the situation is resolved before Bonnie arrives home.

In “The Bonnie Situation,” it stands alone as an entire story. It contains humor, crime and somewhat mystery as to what is really going on in Vincent and Jules’ line of work. The plot of the film in general could be described as a crime drama, but it is so much more and complex than that. Pulp Fiction is mainly about people making the wrong decisions and being at a location, at the wrong time. All of the characters are put into situations that they manage to get out of, but it also takes a lot of time in order to do so. Tarantino made a film that is a sort of cautionary tale to people who make poor decisions, without even thinking about it. “The Bonnie Situation” is so important to the film, because a character that is not even shown on screen, but is talked about, holds the control of the events that take place during her absence. Although Bonnie is not present, her husband is extremely worried about how everything will turn out, if she were to arrive home early. Literally, the entire process of the car cleaning would have never happened, if Bonnie was home. It would have even been unentertaining if Jimmy were single. The idea of almost getting caught doing something immoral and vile, is fascinating and exciting, in a disturbing, sickening way.

The film illustrates violence and humor as something that can be coexisting and not separate. “The Bonnie Situation” is a great example of this, because of its immoral act of cleaning up a dead body. The scene is led to a small, but drawn-out discussion that is both about gourmet coffee and a dead, Black man in Jimmy’s garage. It is so ridiculous, in the sense that it is supposed to be funny, but also serious at the same time. I believe that is what Tarantino’s cameo was indicated for; to make light of a crazy situation. Tarantino’s character could have been played by anyone, but he decided to do it himself, because who can truly play an “outsider” better than he can?

Pulp Fiction is definitely the type of film people watch and wonder, “What have I just watched?” but now people know. It wasn’t a crime drama. It wasn’t a romance or a gangster film. It was just a film, a confusing one, about people being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and most of them getting killed for it (Vincent). Lesson learned: Never go to the bathroom.

'The 400 Blows' review

“The 400 Blows” is a black and white 1959 film by Francois Truffaut, about adolescence and how a child’s life and the decisions that they make can affect it. The child, Antoine Doinel, begins the film by getting in trouble with his school teacher and is punished. When he goes home, his life and behavior there is not better than it is at school. His behavior becomes so reckless, that his parents eventually send him to a juvenile detention, which he later escapes and runs away from.

Although the film does not have an exact, straight-to-the-point plot, it is like looking at a photo album. The viewer is allowed glimpses into the life of a young boy, who appears to be a troublemaker and disobedient, though we do not know why he commits the things he does. These short flickers of his life are not all bad, but there are some nice, peaceful moments that Doinel experiences. When he and his classmate skip school and run around Paris, they are happy with each other and fear nothing. In that moment, they are children. Truffaut captures their adventures as small boys who are sometimes naughty, but are still naive. Their playful adventure gave them a sense of innocence that the viewer might have thought did not exist, because of what trouble they caused earlier in the film. Their innocence and fun is broken when Doinel sees his mother being romantic with another man. They are both caught in their misconduct and their innocence is lost.

The only true time that Doinel regains a bit of his innocence is when his father brings him to the police station and he spends the night there. He is behind bars and locked up, left behind by his parents and he is faced to accept his misdemeanors. The moment is quiet when he rolls up a cigarette in his jail cell. Scenes that are silent or lack a lot of sound have much more meaning than others, because silence says so much. In the juvenile detention, when he escapes and comes to a stop at the ocean, it is not only quiet but he is alone. A major theme in the film is alienation, in which the main character, Doinel, is alone mostly towards the end of the film. He tends to have a friend to assist him with everything throughout the film, so he is not alone, but he is lonely. It is him against everyone else, specifically adult, older figures in his life. They tell him what to do and how to behave, but like a scratch he cannot help but itch, he has to do something drastic to defy them. These adult figures are obstacles that stand in his way, and he can usually get past them, but it is until he reaches the ocean at the end of the film, that he is unable to get past this obstacle, or border. He is lost again, as he looks at the camera in a freeze-frame shot, perhaps, asking for help.

A photo album allows for someone to know what is going on in the picture, but they cannot understand what is going on behind it. Doinel might have avoided his childhood in order to try to grow up too quickly. He did things that many young children would not do. However, because he is easily persuaded, he tries to be a good son and student to be in good spirits with his family and school. He tries to be a child again, but when it backfires, he goes back to being mischievous. When innocence is lost, it is hard to find again, and at most times refuses to come out of its hiding spot.