Wild Tales
2014 · Directed by Damián Szifron
Original language: Spanish
- drama
- thriller
- comedy
The story
Injustice and the demands of the world can cause stress for many people. Some of them, however, explode. This includes a waitress serving a grouchy loan shark, an altercation between two motorists, an ill-fated wedding reception, and a wealthy businessman who tries to buy his family out of trouble.
What it’s like
Bright, sun-struck Argentine daylight and tight, carefully staged frames give way to sudden chaos: a diner booth, a gridlocked highway, a glossy hotel ballroom where the champagne flows and the dance floor turns feral. The palette is clean and saturated, the camera mostly steady and composed, so when things snap the shock lands hard. Sound does a lot of the work, with tense quiet broken by blaring horns, shouting, and a brisk, playful score. Six separate episodes, each with its own cast and escalation, build a shared mood of simmering frustration and gleeful release. Vibe: sharp, mischievous, and bitterly funny, with the rhythm of a series of pressure valves blowing. Violence is frequent and often brutal, sometimes gory, with some sexual content and crude language; it is played for dark laughs but can be jarring. This suits someone who wants an audacious, wickedly funny anthology with teeth, not something gentle or cozy. It is for viewers who enjoy black comedy about ordinary people pushed past their limits, and who can handle sudden, cathartic bursts of anger.
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