The hit Argentinian film “Wild Tales” is only Damian Szifrón’s third feature-length film with a résumé of mostly TV work and short films. For someone with relatively low-key success, the filmmaker managed to gain Spanish movie legend Pedro Almodóvar and his brother Agustín on board as producers. While film fanatics raved about Poland’s “Ida” and France’s “Force majeure” as the best foreign films of 2014, “Wild Tales” didn’t disappear into obscurity right away. After being nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars in February, Szifrón’s richly satirical feature finally gets a theatrical run in Durango. Fans of not only Szifrón, but also Almodóvar’s movies will definitely enjoy this one.
“Wild Tales” is a collection of six short, unrelated stories that feature themes of surreal, ridiculously bad luck and coincidence. Within the two-hour runtime, we experience an ill-fated plane ride between strangers with a strange connection; a waitress who meets the man responsible for her dad’s death and a cook with thinks she should kill him as revenge; a man terrorized by a psychotic driver in the middle of nowhere; a working-class family man being ripped off by a car-towing company and physically fed up with it; a rich family trying to cover up their son’s drunken-driving homicide with money; and a wedding where violence and manipulation occur between a young bride and her not-so-innocent groom.
The cast includes Argentinian actors Darío Grandinetti, María Murell, Ricardo Darín, Erica Rivas and Diego Gentile. “Wild Tales” is in the same vein as Woody Allen’s “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex” or the multi-directed “Paris, je t’aime,” where some segments work instantly and others don’t.
Here, five of the shorts are expertly crafted with wit and dark humor that keep the viewers’ eyebrows raised or nervously laughing. Particular stand-outs are the car-towing episode and the bizarre wedding, with great performances by Darín as the numb family man and Rivas as the ecstatic bride. The drunken-driving segment doesn’t quite hit the mark as well as the others, but that doesn’t hold the movie down all the same. While “Wild Tales” does bear some similarities to Almodóvar’s style, it’s far more broad and accessible for the average viewer who isn’t primarily a fan of either director. There are eyebrow-raising moments, but not complete turn-offs. There may not be happy endings every time in Szifrón’s crazy universe, but they certainly are entertaining and quick to the point for film lovers. Rated R.
