American director Quentin Tarantino did not study cinema at any of the institutes or universities, but he learned it in a small video store, and yet he turned into a film school, not only in the United States where he made his nine films, but in the whole world.
Since his debut with The Dog Warehouse in 1992, Tarantino has drawn attention to the enormous and open violence and bloodshed that flow in his films, but on the other hand, he has produced works that have expressed with great professionalism and hurtful frankness the modernity and its reflection on life and the enormity of the human losses that have been associated with it.
It was not unusual that the shadows of Tarantino's style appeared in the generations that followed, but strangely enough, bright shadows and sometimes specific scenes and complete dramatic lines appeared in the works of others.
German director Peter Thorwarth's Blood and Gold captures those traits that can be accepted as influenced by Tarantino's style, and those that cannot be accepted as impersonating specific features in a particular film.
Amazing start
The specter of World War II is not absent from cinema much, especially in the production of both the United States of America and Germany, and the American Quentin Tarantino's handling of World War II was completely different from others, although it revolved around espionage and revenge, and drowned his audience in dreams, and changed the history we know to a history of his own, where Hitler was killed in an explosion in a theater in Paris, and created in the film "Unknown Villains" in 2009 a special squad to take revenge on Nazi soldiers by killing them and removing the scalp and keep it.
The German side of "Blood and Gold", which is currently on Netflix, director Peter Thorworth, captures the viewer's attention in a fierce battle between a defected German soldier "Henrik" (Robert Masir) and his old band, and ends with his entire trial, and then hanging him on the gallows.
After the viewer reaches the moment of certainty of the soldier's death, a young woman named Elsa (Mary Huck) appears, rescues him, hides him and treats him.
"Henrik" – who was saved from death – was in a hurry to search for his daughter who escaped death in an explosion, while her mother and brother died, and he defected to the German army and realized the absurdity of that war after losing his son and wife, so he decided to save his daughter who survived, but his colleagues – who realize deep down that the war is at its end and that defeat is at the gates – are looking for a golden treasure hidden by one of those who were expelled from a village in which "Elsa" lives in the tip of which I saved him.
War and Gold
German cinema recently presented the film "Everything is quiet in the western square" 2022, which came bloody and tragic to a frightening degree, but that intentional exaggeration came to portray the ugliness of war and warn against falling into the folly of getting involved in it again, but the film "Gold and Blood" did not live up to such nobility, but rather took a position condemning the soldiers who were forced into war and a large segment of the people as well.
The inhabitants of the small village unjustly expelled one of the families, assaulted her and burned her house, completely ignoring the family's participation in the construction of the village itself, and here director Peter Thorworth and scriptwriter Stefan Barth reveal a new addition and another dimension that was not mentioned in films of racial oppression before, where the condemnation was limited to the political leadership (Hitler) and his close followers and some leaders, but the people were isolated from the matter.
Although the main thief of gold is the mayor of the village, his accomplices were civilians, including a woman, but the scene of the wonderful end establishes a new fact that confirms that the military - whether German or American - will covet gold, which is what happened when the Americans were able after entering the country to put their hands on the treasure, their leader suggested not to be reported.
Heroes and villains
Henrique's desire to flee the field was only an attempt to find his daughter, so in the first scenes of the work it seemed as if his eyes resembled those of a robot that had been programmed, and he did not release that potential energy that reaches him with the viewer's conscience, so that sympathy that the director of the work aims to achieve, and this energy did not appear and this human touch was launched only in the last scene when he hugged his child and told her that he was her father.
On the contrary, Lieutenant Colonel Von Starn Field (Alexander Scher), the commander of the combat division, performed so generous that it could be talked about a theatrical performance rather than the required cinematic performance, but the clever actor tried to make up for the lack of expression caused by covering half of his face with a mask that conceals his ugly wounds.
Cher gave a distinguished performance consistent with a man who carries a lot of contradictions, evils and vanity, and the end of the presenter came at the hands of "Elsa", which he wanted to possess, as she took out the poison capsule that he keeps in a ring with his finger for the time of defeat and put it in his mouth, to confirm in the manner of killing him that he was already defeated and it was time for his suicide.
Elsa herself is that free spirit who did not want to give up after her father was killed by Nazi troops, and she hid her disabled brother in a country that decided to get rid of the disabled after the leader considered them "second-class creatures" and hid him, but he was eventually killed after eliminating a large number of soldiers.
The makers of the work confirmed that the game in this war came in the name of nationalism, the Aryan race and claims of greatness in exchange for looking at others inferiorly and considering them of a low nature, so the hero's role came negatively, he could not protect the family, but he took the gold and kept it in the church.
Venues and tournament
Two houses, a house of worship and a few cars are all that the makers of the work used, and other than that the weapons varied between automatic rifles, pistols, knives and shovels as well, but the two houses and the house of worship did a real heroism in the work, as these places in the time of dictatorship and murder on identity were hiding places from the bullets of killers, and they are the places of cover for those who plan to revolt against them.
The first house burned down, and it was a hideout for Elsa and her disabled brother, but after witnessing a battle during which "Henrik" humiliated his colleagues and his former commander, and the other house remained intact until the end, but the house of worship dropped its summit and exploded its sacred altar and witnessed the last battle between bandits dressed as soldiers and between a man and a woman defending their family.
Killing may be a completely normal act during wars, but the magnifying shots of flying heads, cut pieces, cutting necks, and the launch of blood falls with such brutality do not belong to beauty in anything, and the difference between Tarantino's violence and the violence of other directors - including Peter Thorworth - is that the former depicts violence in the manner of the games of the light-handed magician who catches the viewer's eye to one side, while hiding things on the opposite side with his hand inside the bracelet of his shirt that the viewer does not notice, and so Tarantino does when he presents violence wrapped In a comedy situation or a funny cartoon performance, it is as if to say to the viewer: Do not believe, we are acting.