Putin is Samurai Sword by Hattori Hanzo

The story of Tarantino's film heroes looks very much like the history of Russia
It is for about a month already that Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 is demonstrated in Russian cinemas. The place of the modern cinematography king has been vacant for six years. Now, Tarantino is back and has regained the position. No matter if Tarantino did it on purpose or not, but he has once again made a film for Russians. Nikolay Berdyayev, the famous Russian thinker, could characterize the film with the following phrase: "It's a film about beauty and the inevitability of revenge, a film about the eternal female essence of the Russian soul."
 
Everything is quite clear about the cinematographic perfection of the new film by Tarantino. Universally known filmmakers have been once again demonstrated Tarantino's genius. The film has given much food for reflection to some of modern Russian producers. The audience has finally got a good film so radically differing from second-rate films.
 
In this particular case we speak about the Russian audience. As follows from comments of the US audience, the only thing Americans have seen in the film was horrible violence. Americans do dislike violence but still go to cinemas and watch such films. In a word, this film is repeating the fate of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, which is not a surprise at all.  In spite of the fact that the film is permeated with American popular culture, the talent and the degree of artistic freedom characterize Quentin Tarantino as a purely Russian filmmaker. This means that Tarantino's basic audience is in Russia and his films are meant for the Russian audience.
 
This statement can hardly be proved. One should either accept it and take it as true, or to reject it (there are too many cases against to be enumerated here). Let us take the legendary Russian film Three Poplars in Plyushchikha Street. When Tarantino worked on the roles of Mia and Vincent in Pulp Fiction, he in fact repeated all the finds of Russian film producer Tatyana Lioznova employed in Three Poplars in Plyushchikha Street. In both films the audience perceives the tension of the unsaid among the pairs. Both filmmakers penetrate even deeper than the sphere of consciousness and emotions. In the legendary Russian film, the heroine of Tatyana Doronina was good at singing, while the heroes of Uma Thurman and John Travolta were perfect dancers.
 
Kill Bill Vol. 1 is a romantic fairytale narrated with the hyper modern movie language. The heroine of Uma Thurman revenges herself upon her former special forces brother-soldiers, the people who had attempted to kill her in the ninth month of pregnancy. This is the story line of the American film. To be more precise, Kill Bill is a film about a revengeful woman. This is a really burning problem for Russia today.   
 
It takes little effort to see that the heroine of Uma Thurman is personified Russia. Pregnant Uma dressed in a wedding dress lies severely beaten in the church. This is an exact image of Russia of the late 1990s when the country experienced a default and the Chechen war. Then go death of the baby (this means loss of the future for Russia) and four years of coma (the first period of Vladimir Putin’s presidency in Russia).
 
The action of the film begins when the heroine of Uma Thurman recovers from coma and experiences almost the same emotions that Russia is currently going through. When recovered, the heroine sees the world disfigured with the injustice that had got so deeply rooted over the four years of her coma. An illusion appears at this moment that the unjust world where her enemies live is incredibly stable and will exist forever. The unjust world would have existed forever if the heroine of Uma (Russia) had died in the church or somewhere in a hospital. But the heroine came to herself; the world realized its ugliness that must be immediately improved.

The lost harmony can be restored in two ways: either through forgiveness (in the particular case of Russia - through economic and any other kind of amnesty) or through vengeance. Quentin Tarantino does not put the heroine into the dilemma. In the course of the film, no doubt arises that the revenge is justified. The audience is given no right to doubt, as its role is to sympathize with the avenger and wish her luck. Thus, the line of the film corresponds with the actual program of Vladimir Putin's second presidential period. A saying that Tarantino puts at the very beginning of the film sound very much in Putin's style: "Revenge is a meal that must be served cold." A true avenger never lets anger cloud his eyes; an object of his revenge as such has no value for him. He focuses on his revenge only and hopes to restore harmony.
 
If we interpret the heroine of Uma Thurman as Russia, who is Vladimir Putin then? In Tarantino's film, the image of the Russian president appears as a Samurai sword made by master Hattori Hanzo. The audience may interpret the image of the master pretending to be just a barman as Russian special services that have had no effect upon the fate of the country for a rather long period already.
 
In the first part of the film, the heroine revenges herself upon women only. A conclusion can be made in this case that during the second presidential period of Vladimir Putin Russia will deal with its domestic enemies - oligarchs and bureaucrats assisting them. The audience will not see the killing of Bill in the film. At the end of the film he pronounces that the baby Uma's heroine remains alive. This sounds against the background of suggestions made by western analysts that Russia may regain its position among the world leaders in 2010-2015. 

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Author`s name Michael Simpson
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