‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ might not be the outre comedy unlike its Cannes predecessor, ‘Pulp Fiction’
The movie, a lot like ‘Pulp Fiction’, delves deep into the lives of upper LA residents who drive around a boulevard they no longer recognize.
Twenty-five years ago when Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Pulp fiction’ made its entrance at the Cannes International Film Festival of 1994, the French cinema community was already up on heels complaining about the little quality American films held. The then 31-year-old Tarantino, a school dropout whose film school qualification was the degree of an employer at an L.A. video store, came up with his neo-noir tale about unconventional characters. When ‘Pulp fiction’ finally screened at the festival, it not only marked a milestone for generations of American films to follow but quickly gained the filmmaker the honor of receiving the Palme d’Or.
Now almost 25-year-later, Tarantino once again appeared at the festival with a star-studded cast which included two of Hollywood’s leading men Leonardo Dicaprio and Brad Pitt, along with some of the most well-known faces in the industry such as Margot Robbie and Dakota Fanning. Apart from the cast, perhaps everything has remained the same for the director who began his career as an independent filmmaker in 1992 (‘Reservoir Dog’). This year when Tarantino once again arrived at the festival, it was nothing less than reminiscing the opening take on the classic noir ‘Pulp Fiction’.
A lot remained the same, from a modern retelling of an old school Hollywood steadily headed towards the end of its Golden Age to the brilliant characterization exquisitely performed by a cast in all variety. Yet there is perhaps a single touch of distinction between the two. As the ninth film in Tarantino’s heavily quirk laden universe, ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ might fall short of the bathetic humor it has set out to execute.
With a Sergio Leone inspired Spaghetti Western fiction, it can be expected the movie will give us a series of frames that will be reminiscing a long-gone West. However, then again the movie itself is about a long-gone West which had seen Hollywood rise and fall across the ‘70s, a Hollywood completely clad with its hippie generation. With that intention to what can be said paying a tribute to the last decade of the industry’s Golden Age, ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ gives us an aging actor, Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) and his stunt double, Cliff Booth (Pitt), who are trying to make sense of a world they no longer recognize.
What could have easily been passed as just another movie about the age-old habit of contemplation, Tarantino introduces one of Hollywood’s most legendary and darling character, Sharon Tate played by a vigorously feline Robbie. Sharon’s murder by the Manson family creates the backdrop of the story but at the same time it is the foil which helps accentuate Dalton’s attempt to fit into this new hippie Hollywood. A far slower ride than ‘Pulp Fiction’, which unravelled a new mystery at every turn, ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ is more of a tongue-in-cheek comedy, without all the glaring sexual politics and racial criticisms.
The movie is scheduled to be theatrically released in the United States on July 26, 2019 and on August 14, 2019 in the United Kingdom.
