Wild Tales

Dir: Damián Szifron

2014

*****

Damián Szifron’s glorious collection of short stories is a celebration of violence and vengeance. Each story is vastly different from the next and thankfully they aren’t all about redemption, chance and karma, they are just what they are, pure unadulterated revenge. There are six stories in total, the first short ‘Pasternak’ being the ultimate way to start a film. During a flight, a man (Darío Grandinetti) starts a conversation with a woman (María Marull) and tells her he can’t help but not tell her how beautiful she is. The woman is coy and lets the man continue. She then asks questions about him and he tells her he is a music critic. His name is familiar and she remembers that he reviewed the work of her former boyfriend and savaged a piece he had written, a review he never quite got over. Another passenger who is listening in apologises for listening and asks if the man in question is called Pasternak. He is. Several other passengers soon intervene and claim to know Pasternak as well, and soon it is obvious that everybody on the flight is connected to him, and all of their relationships with him ended negatively. A flight attendant reveals that Pasternak is the plane's cabin chief and has locked himself into the cockpit. Amidst the panic, Pasternak crashes the plane into his parents' house. Like I said, it is a hell of an intro. The second film, ‘Las Ratas’ takes us to a small restaurant off a rainy highway in the late evening. A loan shark (César Bordón) stops for a bite and finds he is the lone patron. The waitress (Julieta Zylberberg) recognizes him as the man who ruined her family and caused her father's untimely death. The man treats the waitress very poorly when he arrives and when he orders his food. The cook (Rita Cortese), who reveals she has been in prison, offers to mix rat poison into the man's food. The waitress refuses the cook's offer but the cook adds the poison anyway, unknown to the waitress. When the waitress finds out she does not take the food from the man. The man's teenage son then arrives and eats the same food; feeling guilty that the boy might eat it, the waitress tries to take the poisoned food away. The man attacks her after she throws food in his face so the cook rushes out of the kitchen and kills him with a chef's knife.The son is so shocked by this he vomits.The last scene depicts the son getting medical treatment from a responding ambulance while the waitress sits next to him. The cook is arrested and driven away in a police car. The film’s third film is definitely the most violent of the six shorts. In ‘El mas fuerte’ (The Strongest), we see Diego (Leonardo Sbaraglia) driving through the desert as he tries to overtake a slower, older car, that constantly blocks him. As he finally passes, he insults the other driver, Mario (Walter Donado). Further up the road, he gets a flat tire and Mario soon catches up with him. He parks his car in front of Diego's, blocking him in in intimidating fashion. Diego remains in the car and apologies for insulting him but Mario smashes his windshield and then defecates and urinates on it out of revenge. Just as Mario is about to leave, Diego pushes him and his car into the river and drives off. Fearing he will be arrested and still wanting the upper hand, Diego soon returns to run Mario down, but loses control and crashes into the river. Mario then enters Diego's car through the trunk and both start to fight. After grappling and expelling the fire extinguisher, Mario leaves Diego strangling by a seat belt. Mario rips a piece of his shirt, lights it on fire and places it in the gas tank in an attempt to incinerate the car, but Diego grabs him and prevents him from escaping. A tow truck driver (called earlier by Diego) arrives as the car explodes. The police discover the two charred bodies holding onto each other and mistake them for lovers who died in a tragic accident. In Bombita (Little Bomb), Simón Fischer (Ricardo Darín), a demolition expert, picks up a cake for his daughter's birthday party and discovers his car has been towed away. He goes to the towed-car lot and argues, insisting there were no yellow lines indicating no parking, but to no avail. He grudgingly pays the towing fee and misses his daughter's party. The next day, when he is again refused a refund now at DMV, he attacks the glass partition and is arrested. The story makes the news and Fischer's company fires him. His wife (Nancy Dupláa) seeks a divorce and sole custody of their daughter. Fischer applies unsuccessfully for a job and discovers his car has been towed again. He retrieves the car and packs it with explosives in a tow zone. After it is towed again, he detonates the explosives, destroying the towing office with no casualties. Fischer is imprisoned and becomes a local hero, with calls on social media for his release. His wife and daughter visit him in prison for his birthday, bringing him a cake in the form of a tow truck. It is the only story where the protagonists acts of violence are weirdly rewarded. The film’s penultimate story is the darkest in many respect. In La Propuesta (The Proposal) a teenager, in his father's car, arrives home after committing a hit-and-run on a pregnant woman. On the local news, the woman and child are reported dead, and her husband swears vengeance. The driver's parents (Oscar Martínez and María Onetto) form a plan with his lawyer (Osmar Núñez) to have their groundskeeper José (Germán de Silva) take the blame for half a million dollars. The local prosecutor (Diego Velázquez) sees through the scheme because the car's mirrors were not adjusted for the caretaker. The lawyer negotiates to include the prosecutor in the deal for more money. The caretaker asks for an apartment along with his money, and the prosecutor asks for an additional payment to pay off the police. The guilty son says he wants to confess to the gathered crowd. Frustrated, the father calls off the deal, telling his son to confess. The lawyer renegotiates and the father agrees on a lower price. As Jose is taken away by the police, the dead woman's husband strikes him repeatedly on the head with a hammer. The final short is the collection’s grand finale and the film’s piece de resistance. In Hasta que la muerte nos separe (Till Death Do Us Part), we enter a Jewish wedding party just as the couple arrive at the reception. Damián Szifron takes his time introducing us to the characters and main players but soon the bride, Romina (Érica Rivas), discovers that her groom, Ariel (Diego Gentile), has cheated on her with one of the guests. She confronts him as they dance in front of everyone and he soon admits to his infidelity. She runs off in distress to the roof, where a kitchen worker comforts her. Ariel eventually finds her and discovers her having sex with the worker. She vindictively announces to him that she will sleep with every man who shows her interest, and take him for all he is worth if he tries to divorce her, or when he dies. They return to the party and continue the festivities. I thought that the story could have ended there in such a devilish note but it goes on as Romina continues to drink. Romina pulls the woman Ariel slept with onto the dance floor, spins her round, and slams her into a mirror. She insists that the photographer film Ariel and his mother weeping, declaring that she will show it at a future wedding. The mother attacks her, and is pulled off by her husband and Romina's father; Romina collapses. Ariel approaches her and extends a hand. They dance, kiss, and begin to have sex by the cake as the guests leave. The revenge has been had and it feels that for the first time in the film, that the need for revenge is extinguished and this is a happy ending. Albeit an unconventional one. It’s a masterpiece of anger, disdain, impatience and violence, but the skeptic in me wonders whether the film would have been nominated for awards such as the British Baftas and American Academy Award if it had been an English language film. It matters not though, as it was justifiably successful and utterly delicious in its darkness. The stories came about when Szifron had a break from directing and producing TV series and focused on writing. Alongside working on three major projects at the same time (a science fiction film series, a western and a love story) he found himself writing short stories just to "let off steam", and eventually realized they were related. There were initially twelve tales, out of which he chose the "wilder" ones. The second, third, fourth and sixth segments were partially based on real-life situations Szifron went through; the second was written in a road immediately after he had an argument with an Audi driver. At first, all stories were written as independent ones, and each of them could have been made into a film. However, Szifron thought that grouped they would have more impact so he decided to "reduce the conflicts to its minimum and find their climaxes.” Often described as a black humor film, Szifron stressed the stories were not planned as comedies but rather as a thriller or as a drama depending on the part, in fact "they begin as dramas. The humor is a consequence of what these characters feel in a very dramatic situation.” Ultimately, he thought neither comedy nor drama were appropriate labels, and considered that "catastrophe movie" is a good term for it, making the film even darker than you originally might think. Each film has its own visual identity and style as if each were a different movie, with its own spatial dimensions, colors, style, textures and set decoration. Szifron has stressed they "are vital organs of the same body" that sustain the film and "together they are more robust and make a larger universe". It is a great piece of escapism, a primal scream that everyone can relate to and enjoy.