Tarantino Left a Dozen Smart Clues in Iconic $321M Movie, but Fans Missed All of Them

Summary:

• The “strudel scene” is one of the most stressful and disturbing scenes in Quentin Tarantino ’s Inglourious Basterds.
• Hans Landa shows that he recognizes Shoshanna by ordering strudel and milk for them both: a non-kosher dish and a dairy farm reference.
• Tarantino also gave Landa a one-word line that references the soundtrack of the Nazi’s first scene in the movie where he killed Shoshanna’s family.

Inglourious Basterds begins with the Nazi standartenführer (don’t ask us to spell this word ever again) Hans Landa finding and exterminating an entire Jewish family. Only one girl, Shoshanna, escapes, and years later, she meets her family’s murderer again. The girl bears a new name, Emmanuelle, and is now a young woman; and Landa seemingly didn’t see her face when she ran away all those years ago…

But ever since Quentin Tarantino released Inglourious Basterds in 2009, fans have been arguing whether or not the Nazi officer recognized her so many years later. This debate shouldn’t even exist, really, given all the clues Tarantino left for us.

Landa Definitely Recognized Shoshanna in the Cafe

Quentin Tarantino is famous for his immaculate attention to detail, and the scene where Shoshanna and Hans Landa meet in Paris years later is filled with them. Everything Landa does, he does to demonstrate to the young woman — and the viewers — that he knows who’s sitting next to him, and he’s in complete control.

When left alone with Shoshanna, Landa ordered a strudel for both himself and the young woman. Traditionally, the dough for strudels is made with pork fat; they also have cream on top. Some fans speculate that it was Landa’s test to see whether he was having dinner with a jew; in reality, it was him demonstrating his knowledge.

The milk he orders for them both is another pointer, since years ago, it was on a dairy farm that he found Shoshanna’s family in hiding. Even the state of his strudel by the end of the conversation tells a lot: it’s shaped like a little cottage house, like the one his people executed the Dreyfus family in.

Tarantino Added a Subtle Easter Egg in That Scene

But Inglourious Basterds wouldn’t have been a Tarantino movie if the director hadn’t left even sneakier meta references for the most observant viewers. The strudel scene has one of the most brilliant Tarantino Easter eggs we’ve seen so far.

After finishing his strudel, Hans Landa asks Shoshanna’s opinion on it in a weird way: he simply says, “Verdict?” That’s not how you typically go about discussing a dish, and there was a special reason for it: the soundtrack that introduced Hans Landa at the beginning of the movie was Ennio Morricone’s score called The Verdict.

So really, during the notorious strudel scene, there are two people furiously winking at the viewer: Hans Landa and Quentin Tarantino. Landa winks because he wants both you and Shoshanna to know that he knows about her; Tarantino winks because he wants you to know that he knows that you know that Landa knows.

Source: Reddit