Content warning: this review discusses themes of graphic violence and feet
This informative film acts as a metaphor for the exploration of one man and his weird obsession with women’s feet. While this review is non-kink shaming, it will explore how the director’s action film is an intertextual expression across films.
Recently, in my media class we discussed a form of media theory known as Auteur theory. This theory is defined by the director being seen as an ‘author’ of the film or text. The director often has a consistent creative identity that is shown throughout their work. This director mentioned has a similar visual identity. While this includes other consistencies such as types of camera shots and actresses, the most defining feature of his films is of course his love of feet.
The film starts with a woman waking from her coma that was a result of her husband attempting to kill her and her unborn child at their wedding. There are multiple shots of the woman learning to walk again after she wakes from a coma that focus on her legs and feet. One can interpret this as a metaphor for the director’s inability to break out of his foot obsession. The woman then goes on a journey, most likely via foot, to find her murderous ex. Along the way she is confronted by other female enemies, including the leader of the Japanese Yakuza. Many of these women fight in bare feet before being defeated and killed by the protagonist dubbed ‘the bride’. This again could be interpreted as the director’s desperate battle to not make every film visually focus on women’s feet.
There is a part two to this film, I didn’t finish watching it and it was a while ago, however I feel I can say with 80% confidence that this one probably also contains shots of feet. As mentioned previously there are many other films such as this that contain intertextual metaphors for feet. In a similar film the actress takes of her shoes in a cinema and puts her feet on the back of the front seat.
Additionally, you could say that while again we don’t kink-shame, constantly focusing on women’s feet is simply another way women are objectified in the film industry. However, this column is a work of satire so I’m going to save that for another day and instead focus on the sheer wild amount of feet shots in the director’s films.
In terms of things, I enjoyed about the movie itself I definitely enjoyed seeing the women kick ass, even if it was each other’s asses. The shots that don’t consist of feet are well done, and blend well with the setting to tell the story. Something I would like to see done differently next time would be less shots of feet (again, not-kink shaming, just not my thing).
All in all, this film is both entertaining and engaging. If I were to describe this film in two words it would be action and feet which does highlight that these two things stand out the most (and Uma Thurman). This is not to discredit the film, there are some other great elements and themes. Alas, I cannot make a satire review of a Quentin Tarantino film without critiquing the continuous shots of feet. Anyway, all in all Kill Bill is an enjoyable film.
