When we look back on history, particularly major events such as World War II, there is a general understanding of what happened and how it all went down. Every once in a while, an untold story will surface of a dramatic and heroic act that has previously remained obscure. Through the personal accounts of anyone who served or lived amidst any war will emerge a hint of grey amid history's black and white. But in the end, the fact remains that most prominent events that define our history remain unchanged. That is unless you are Quentin Tarantino.

Much like its dictionary defying title, Inglourious Basterds is a film that takes history and breaks it in two. From its spaghetti western opening in the French countryside to its climactic ending in Paris, Inglourious Basterds is a film that takes place amidst the very real conflict of WW II's German occupied France. But as the film's first line—"Once upon a time in occupied France"—indicates, the story it tells is a fairy tale. Referencing historical cinema and wartime propaganda just as much as historical fact and wartime strategy, the film's landscape almost becomes a look at WWII if your primary reference were film. And as scenes begin and end with expectations and preconceived notions rewarded, defied, and blown out of the water, its completely alternate reality asks you why it turned out the way it did instead of, well, about a million other ways it could have.

Although the trailers for Inglourious Basterds depict its story as one dominated by the murderous gang of Nazi-hunting Jewish Americans known as the "Inglourious Basterds," the much more intriguing tale it weaves actually involves not only the Basterds but a young Jewish woman disguised as the French owner of a Parisian cinema (Mèlanie Laurent), a charming German war hero turned movie star (Daniel Brühl), his mentor and German propaganda machine (Sylvester Groth), a British film critic turned soldier (Michael Fassbender), a German movie star turned Allied spy (Diane Kruger), a German officer known as the "Jew Hunter" (Christoph Waltz), and, of course, Adolf Hitler himself (Martin Wuttke). Although we do get to witness several scenes of the Basterds' brutal vengeance, we also join the film's other characters in a spine tingling Nazi interrogation inside a country home, a tense reunion between killer and survivor over strudel, an unexpectedly eventful night out in basement bar, and a Swastika-studded Nazi movie premiere.

As in most of Tarantino's films, Inglourious Basterds is a film built around the expectation and anticipation of extreme violence. We know that a conflict is coming in almost every scene, but drawn out by mystery, uncertainty, and false relief preceding surprise reveals, every scene causes us to spend the entire movie wondering how that conflict will arise and who will deliver its blow. As the movie continues toward its final chapter with half the characters working to bring down the Nazis and their Nazi enemies repeatedly turning up with devious smiles and a villainous propensity for eliminating all who oppose them, the question is: who will win? And as the movie's final scenes both go where we expect them to and where we never would have guessed, the strange sense that we are left with is that no matter how well we think we know the logic of how our world and our reality work, sometimes the way things turn out pretty much defy all we know.

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