Review

Wild Tales

People are capable of amazing acts of love, generosity and self-sacrifice. They can also be vain, bitter and vengeful creatures who use their terrifying intelligence in precisely calibrated ways. The wonder of Argentinian writer-director Damian Szifron's Wild Tales is that it is somehow able to demonstrate the extremes of human unkindness while never reducing its characters to props.

If the definition of pornography has to do with the objectification of human beings for the gratification of others, Wild Tales is a kind of anti-porn. For all its cartoonish, cathartic violence, it never allows us to imagine ourselves much different from the perps and victims on the screen. There is a heart that pumps out this gore.

Wild Tales

89 Cast: Ricardo Darin, Oscar Martínez, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Erica Rivas, Rita Cortese, Julieta Zylberberg, Darío Grandinetti, Maria Onetto, Nancy Duplaa, Osmar Nunez, Cesar Bordon, Diego Gentile, Maria Marull, German de Silva, Diego Velazquez, Walter Donado, Monica Villa

Director: Damian Szifron

Rating: R for extreme violence, language and brief sexuality

Running time: 122 minutes

In Spanish with English subtitles

Still, let's not make of it more than it is -- a collection of six discrete sketches, mostly about the way we get back at those we believe did us wrong. Wild Tales is an anthology film that plays something like a collaboration between Pedro Almodovar (who, along with his brother Agustin, is among the film's producers) and Quentin Tarantino, with a smidgen of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Twilight Zone tossed in for spice. The best story is the first one, "Pasternak," in which all the passengers on a plane slowly begin to realize they all have a connection to an apparently singularly untalented composer of classical music.

This crazy yet elegant opener cedes to a slightly lower key story where an ex-con cook (Rita Cortese) tries to talk an idealistic young waitress (Julieta Zylberberg ) into taking revenge on a former loan shark turned politician (Cesar Bordon) who ruined the waitress's life by driving her father to suicide. The cook reasonably suggests that the only chance the waitress will ever have to get even with a powerful man is in close quarters, that the situational intimacy of the moment allows her an opportunity that must be seized. For a moment this mighty figure is vulnerable -- she could poison his food or stab him in the neck with a fork. So what if there's a price to be paid? The cook felt freer in prison than anywhere else.

Then a smug Audi driver (Leonardo Sbaraglia) shouts "Redneck!" when he finally passes the working stiff (Walter Donado) at the wheel of a filthy heap of a truck. But then the Audi breaks down, and the truck appears on the horizon. Things escalate, and the macho duel that ensues is nasty and weirdly plausible.

The energy flags a bit in the next two stories, which are a bit more sober, but the wickedly deranged finale, "Till Death Do Us Part," in which a new bride (Erica Rivas) discovers her husband (Diego Gentile) cheated on her during their wedding reception recaptures the feral spirit. Rivas (who somehow becomes more adorable the more unhinged she gets) becomes an avenging angel in bridal white. Szifron's episodes vary in tone and quality, but thanks to its superb bookends, the ultimate effect of Wild Tales is satisfyingly feral.

It's like standing in against a young left-handed fireballer who doesn't quite have command of all his pitches yet. Wild Tales is the uneven product of pure talent, all snapping curve balls and 100 mph fastballs buzzing at your ear. Szifron keeps us off-balance and unsettled; somehow his lack of control makes him more effective.

MovieStyle on 04/24/2015

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