Every person who knows me knows very well how big a fan I am of Pulp Fiction. It is high time since I paid my tribute to ‘the’ best movie I have seen till date. This post is not a review of the movie- you can find literally hundreds of them on the internet. It is more about what this movie means to me.
I am one of those fellows who do not want to know anything about a film before actually watching it. For choosing which movie to watch next, all I rely on are things such as the movie’s ratings on IMDb, the star cast and, on a few occasions, recommendations by friends. I have a slight distaste for romantic comedies, but apart from that, I am not even concerned about the genre of a film before watching it. This was how I first watched Pulp Fiction. And since then (trust me, I am not exaggerating this), I have watched the film for more than at least three dozen times (till now)! This is apart from the numerous other occasions on which I have ‘revised’ it by watching scenes from here and there.
By the time I left college, Pulp Fiction had a decent fan-following, at least among the hostelers. If you said something like ‘I dare you, I double dare you motherf*****’, he would understand! I have been involved in many discussions of the film and at one or two times, I have also played a game with a friend in which we would try to recall the names of 20-25 characters from the film! Truly speaking, we had genuine reasons for liking Pulp Fiction so much.
The plot of Pulp Fiction is decent- but then the main attraction of the film lies in the situational comedies, the acting, the dialogues and the way the characters behave throughout the movie. Two hyper-cool gangsters are discussing trivial things such as the metric system and foot massages just before they are about to kill two young kids early in the morning; a small time robbery couple is sitting in a coffee shop, the guy is adamant on quitting and suddenly they decide to rob the place; a gangster and his boss’s wife go out just for dinner and somehow they end up in a drug peddler’s home trying to save the girl from dying; two guys fighting each other somehow land in a place where one of them is raped by a policeman in broad daylight (talk about coincidences!); a black kid is killed accidentally (if you can call it that) and what not! Pulp Fiction is not a comedy movie and all these scenes are presented with utter seriousness (imagine yourself being in place of any character in the film and you will know what I am talking about) but then, you cannot resist laughing. The characters are either very cool or very panicky, they love to talk and they don’t bore me even when I watch them for the ‘n’th time today.
I once read a review of Pulp Fiction which came out in ’94 when the film was released. The reviewer said that when he came out of the theater, he knew that the film was either going to be a very big hit or a big flop. I can understand what he meant. The first time you get up after watching the film, you don’t really understand what just happened- what the fuss was all about. It is only after you watch it one or two times more do you start noticing the small details you missed out earlier.
It is incredible how one can make such a ‘perfect’ film. Apart from Tarantino, I immensely enjoy the works of Nolan, Scorsese and Sergio Leone among others- but none of the movies they’ve made have been able to hook me up so much for such a long time. And I guess now you know the inspiration behind the name of this blog!