From Argentinian director Damián Szifrón comes a series of tales made up of equal parts darkness and hilarity. Wild Tales is an utterly unique and brutally funny exploration of our modern society’s dark corners.
Wild Tales is made up of six self-contained stories of death and pain (don’t worry… It’s mostly funny, really) in one highly polished package of filmmaking. Featuring stellar casting, great cinematography and sophisticated writing, this will definitely not be one to miss when it rolls around as part of the Spanish Film Festival.
Included in this cavalcade of bleak situational comedy are the stories of a wealthy man trying to keep his son out of prison by framing his gardner, a violent battle between two testosterone-fuelled motorists and the heroic tale of man’s explosive struggle against parking laws. Each story ramps up from seemingly innocent to “far-out” surprisingly quickly and with brilliantly crafted complexity. Although at points it does kind of feel like the director and writer are just chucking together some stories that wouldn’t fill out a feature length film on their own, they are all linked enough in style and theme to flow quite well into one another.
Wild Tales is full of examples of beautiful and creative cinematography. From cameras attached to swinging doors to shots from the “inside” of an ATM, the filmmakers dedication to getting the most effect out of every shot really shine through. And talk about quality! Even with all the gritty subject matter, Wild Tales remains a glossy and brilliant visual spectacle. The only things that let it down in this department were one or two unconvincing CGI effects and an overuse of a blur effect in the final story.
The acting, for the most part, is similarly clean cut and effective. Ricardo Darín as Simone (AKA “Dynamite”) is one of the stars of the show, but so is Érica Rivas as the newly-wed wife, Romina. These actors both play understated yet slightly unhinged roles and both manage to pull of their different brands of insanity well.
I must again praise the writer of Wild Tales for the ingenious situations that the characters find themselves in. Watching this film is like watching a mad doll house full of little characters falling apart as the doll-house owner (the writer in this silly analogy of mine) smashes their world up. It’s cruel, but also fascinating and unbelievably funny. It’s just a bit of a shame that the first story connects so coincidentally with a recent real life aeroplane tragedy that I’m sure we’ve all heard of by now. But then again, that’s life, isn’t it?
Wild Tales takes pride and place, almost fittingly, as the closing night special feature for May’s Spanish Film Festival. Es fantástico!
Reviewed by James Rudd
Twitter: @james_wrr
Rating out of 5: 4
Wild Tales screens on 20 May as part of the Spanish Film Festival runs from 6 – 20 May 2015 exclusively at the Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas.
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