WILD TALES
Starring Ricardo Darín, Óscar Martínez
Directed by Damián Szifrón
Shame on you, Hollywood.
That's just one of the reasonable reactions after being spat out the other side of Argentine writer-director/ringmaster Damián Szifrón's cinematic equivalent of an amusement park ride, branded “It's a Chaotic World After All.”
Carved up into six darkly comic, deftly constructed vignettes, Wild Tales bursts with the sort originality, energy and sheer entertainment that’s sorely lacking from the lion’s share of bloated blockbusters.
Whether it’s a man using a commercial aircraft to wreak revenge on anyone and everyone who's ever wronged him, a road rage episode that sees the players taking turns assuming the Wile E. Coyote role or an engineer (South American star Ricardo Darín) taking his pound of flesh from an unscrupulous towing company, the players featured here all have the capacity for cruelty.
Part of the delirious thrill of Szifrón's film comes from guessing just how long it will take each of them to succumb to savagery and rip the veil of civility to shreds.
While the anthology's final chapter – in which a fairy tale wedding goes off the rails and descends into mayhem – may be its longest, it uses its extended runtime to continually shift power dynamics and ensure that viewers are kept off balance.
Furthermore, it illustrates that Szifrón seems to view such hallowed institutions as a sham fit for derision. Granted, he also reserves scorn for figures of authority, who are routinely portrayed as utterly corrupt. Factor in the unrelenting class conflict and it’s apparent that Szifrón has much to say about Argentina's current ills.
Fortunately for casual viewers, he doesn't so much sugar the pill as douse it in Pop Rocks.
