Nazis, David Bowie and the Femme Fatale

In each one of Quentin Tarantino's last three films (Kill Bill, Death Proof, and Inglorious Basterds) he's subverted weak female archetypes with strong willed characters that are often as devastatingly beautiful as they are murderous. Inglorious Basterds features the director's most compelling female character to date. Actress Mélanie Laurent plays Shosanna Dreyfus, a French Jew who watches her entire family die at the hands of Nazis and later exacts revenge as a camera-wielding cinema owner. In one of the film's best sequences, Laurent dresses in a mock-Rambo style where makeup serves as the femme fatale's war paint. The images of Laurent in her blood-red dress paired with David Bowie singing "Putting out the fire with gasoline" over roaring guitars is as comical as it is chillingly good—pure cinematic magic.

David Bowie - "Cat People (Putting Out The Fire)" (from Inglorious Basterds)