Does Hans Landa recognise Shoshana at the restaurant in ‘Inglourious Basterds’?
In 2009, Christoph Waltz went from being an actor virtually unknown even in his native Austria to Hollywood’s unlikeliest star overnight. Within a year, he was an Oscar winner. This was all thanks to his nuanced portrayal of the terrifying villain Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s holocaust movie Inglourious Basterds.
While Landa is a Nazi widely recognised by the film’s other characters by the moniker “Jew Hunter”, he’s also a slippery customer. What makes Waltz’s performance so extraordinary is that when you watch him on screen, it’s hard to pin down what Landa is thinking.
He could be the paragon of good manners and erudition on the outside, showing a mastery of cultural norms in a foreign language. At the very same moment, he could be harbouring the sadistic thoughts of a cold-blooded murderer.
Never does Waltz navigate the emotional dissonance between Landa’s external behaviour and his cruel, conniving mind better than during the restaurant scene an hour into the movie.
It’s the second time we meet him, following the film’s brilliant 20-minute opening sequence, when he oversees the murder of an entire Jewish family. Minus one member of the family, Shoshana, who flees before he can gun her down.
Then, after more than half an hour of screen time without him, the film reintroduces Landa again. Who should he creep up behind but Shoshana, now disguised as the blonde, non-Jewish cinema owner Emmanuelle Mimieux.
She’s sitting at a table with Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and his mistress when Goebbels cries out, “Ah, Landa! You are here.” As if from nowhere, Hans Landa’s Nazi uniform comes into shot behind her, sending a shiver of horror down her spine as she recalls his voice calling her name from the scene of her family’s murder.
Why is Shoshana dining with Goebbels?
Shoshana finds herself in the company of such high-ranking Nazis because a young German solider-turned-actor has taken an interest in her and wants Goebbels to use her cinema for a film premiere. Acting under her false name and identity, she discusses this proposal with Goebbels before Landa is introduced to her as head of security for the event.
As Landa discusses the arrangements for the premiere with “Emmanuelle” in perfect French, at no point is there even a hint of recognition of her real identity from his side. Except, right before he leaves, Landa suggests there is something else he wants to ask Emmanuelle. He pauses for a moment, and the two characters are eyeball to eyeball, with fear pulsing through Shoshana’s body.
Eventually, he says that he can’t remember and decides to let the question go. Apparently, Shoshana’s true identity has gone undetected. And the two characters never meet again.
But, as so often with Tarantino, the devil is the physical detail of a scene rather than the dialogue. In the film’s opening scene, when Landa sits down in the kitchen of the dairy farm where Shoshana and her family are hiding to interrogate the farm’s owner, he asks for a glass of milk.
Later, at the restaurant, in a bold gesture of faux-chivalry, Landa orders dessert for Emmanuelle and himself. He orders an espresso to go with his strudel and then, after a split second’s hesitation, asks that Emmanuelle be served a glass of milk.
Shoshana’s eyes widen briefly before she composes herself. She knows exactly what this gesture means. It is the subtlest of acknowledgements that Landa recognises who she really is.
Why does Landa spare Shoshana?
This acknowledgement begs the question, why does the infamous “Jew Hunter” Landa not have Shoshana detained and sent off to a concentration camp? Why does he allow her to continue to operate her cinema under a false name and even host the premier of Goebbels’ film, which Hitler himself will attend?
It could be that this is simply a weakness left exposed in the plot of Tarantino’s screenplay. Or it could be that, for some reason, Landa takes a special interest in Shoshana, as suggested by his use of her name in the movie’s first scene.
However, it’s more likely we will find the answer in the resolution of the film’s story, which involves Landa deliberately allowing the Inglourious Basterds’ attack on Emmanuelle’s cinema to go ahead. In doing so, he makes a deal with the Americans to end the war in exchange for impunity, as well as being credited for the deaths of the Third Reich’s leaders.
Shoshana is unknowingly complicit in the Basterds’ conspiracy, although she also has her own separate plan to burn her cinema down during the premiere. And so, to execute his plea bargain with the Americans, Landa must let her go free.
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