Worlds cannot do justice to “Wild Tales” but I’ll try.
This anthology film puts ordinary people in worst case scenarios, where no deed goes unpunished good or bad. It’s a blackly comic look at what happens when human nature and animal instinct lock horns.
The six episodes that veer between fate and coincidence portray road rage, woman scorned, for want of a nail and there-but-for-fortune scenarios.
Passengers on a plane learn that they all have something unfortunate in common. The customer of a waitress is the man who ruined her family’s life. A man’s car keeps getting towed by a corrupt bureaucracy.
And in a thrilling sequence a bride tears through the seven stages of grief when she learns about her husband’s secret at their elaborate wedding reception at the end of which her white gown is dotted with red.
Each sequence expands with tension like a balloon about to burst. A soulful rendition of “Fly Me To the Moon,” by Bobby Womack, that closes the film cauterizes it with passion. (Listen to it below.)
“Wild Tales:” explores routine behavior with a jaundiced “Twilight Zone” eye but without that spooky show’s other-natural stimuli. As an anthology it is more like Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Amores Perros,” but without the connective tissue.
It’s collision of insults and animosities is modern urban warfare as lived by us all and carried to violent, briefly vulgar, extremes. On IMDB its plot “keywords” include “hit in the head with a fire extinguisher,” if that’s any indication of what to expect.
The film, written and directed by Argentine television writer-director Damian Szifron and produced by Pedro Almodovar was a foreign language Oscar nominee and is in Spanish with English subtitles.
Three and one half stars ***1/2
With Erica Rivas, Maria Marull, Rita Cortese, Cesar Bordon, Leaonardo Sbaraglia, Ricardo Darin, Walter Donado, Oscar Martinez, Osmar Nunez. Produced by Agustin Almodovar, Pedro Almodovar, Esther Garcia, Matias Mosterin, Hugo Sigman. Written and directed by Damian Szifron. Rated R for violence, langauge, Approximate running time 122 minutes.
Tags: foreign language, Oscar, Pedro Almodovar, Wild Tales Posted by