Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) in Inglourious Basterds is arguably one of the most terrifying characters in film history, and his choice of food was just another mind-game he played with Shosanna (Melánie Laurent). Inglourious Basterds was Quentin Tarantino’s seventh released film and his first of two collaborations with Christoph Waltz. The film was met with critical acclaim thanks, in part, to the stellar performances of Waltz and Laurent — who share one of the movie's most memorable scenes.
In Inglorious Basterds, Landa is a Nazi army officer, known internationally as “The Jew Hunter.” He first encounters Shosanna Dreyfus when he suspects her family to be hiding in the home of dairy farmer Perrier LaPadite. After intense questioning of LaPadite, Landa brings in his associates who open fire on the floorboards, killing all but 18-year-old Shosanna who escapes. She spends the next few years with a new identity as Emmanuelle Mimieux, a Frenchwoman who runs a cinema house that happens to become the premiere venue for a Nazi propaganda film. Shosanna is just one pawn in Landa’s game of chess with the Allies, as he later opposes the Nazi-scalping “Basterds” team at the movie premiere.
Four years after their first encounter, Landa and Shosanna meet at a lunch where Shosanna is persuaded to host Fredrick Zoller’s Nazi film premiere. The lunch meeting is extremely tense, with Shosanna desperately hoping he doesn’t remember her, and Landa strategically playing coy as he interrogates her. Landa’s power comes from being able to suggest he knows one’s secrets even when he doesn’t explicitly state it, and then switching from charmingly cordial to terrifying at the drop of a hat. He ends their discussion without explicitly stating that he knew she was lying, which leads her to believe she was in the clear. On the other hand, his specific choice of a glass of milk and strudel indicates Landa did recognize Shosanna.
The milk Landa orders in Inglorious Basterds is the most obvious ploy; Landa drank milk while he was questioning LaPadite, which Shosanna would have known because he asked for milk while speaking French, which he knew she could understand before switching to English. It also connects to her background as a dairy farmer, which, since everyone else she knew is dead, only he would know. The other giveaway is the strudel, which during WWII likely would have been made with pig lard. According to Jewish diet restrictions, Shosanna would not have been able to eat pork because it's non-Kosher, so Landa may have ordered it to see if she would reject it. Landa’s deadpan moment of silence before stating he forgot what he was going to ask her is also revealing as it quickly recalled his evil mannerisms. He may simply enjoy psychologically torturing her and hopes for a future encounter; Hans spared Shosanna once, why not spare her again?
He may not directly express that he knows she is Shosanna Dreyfus or reveal her identity to other German officers, but the suspense alone is enough to make her understand she is unsafe. Landa uses this same tactic with Bridget von Hammersmark at the film premiere, where he pretends to go along with her and the Basterds’ unreliable story of being Italian filmmakers. Just as he did to Shosanna, he continually tests their ability to continue their act, while giving hints that he knows they’re lying. Inglourious Basterds fortunately ends with Shosanna evading his torture and exacting her revenge on the Nazis. Landa isn’t killed, but ends up with a Swastika carved into his forehead — Aldo Raine’s masterpiece.
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