Wild Tales

Six apocalyptic Argentine stories of revenge combine in this hugely enjoyable and extreme anthology. Producer Pedro Almodóvar must have been impressed by the perverse humour, and the lack of a handbrake as actions rocket out of control. Writer-director Damián Szifron is, though, the sole author of his characters’ nightmarish misfortunes.

An aperitif involving the mysterious link between the passengers on a plane sets up a sequence of satisfying main courses, connected by characters who utterly lose it against their enemies. There’s the thuggish loan shark who stops by a roadside diner, and is served by a waitress (Juliete Zylberberg, pictured below left) whose family he destroyed and who has a supply of rat poison temptingly near. Then there’s the yuppie cruising his sports car down a lonely road on a sunny day, until he’s blocked by the cheap vehicle of a redneck he abuses upon finally passing, before breaking down, and seeing a reunion looming in his rear-view mirror.

Or take Simon (The Secret In Their Eyes’ Ricardo Darin, pictured below), a tower block demolition expert interrupted en route to his daughter’s birthday party when his car is towed, the beginning of a maze of bureaucratic callousness he lashes out at, only to find himself destroyed more completely. This queasy descent of a man who suddenly finds how little he counts against the system is briefly arrested by his particular set of skills with high explosives. The tale of a millionaire buying his son out of trouble for running over a pregnant woman then plays like Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s bleak Three Monkeys cut with comic Latin cynicism, as the death becomes a corruption honey-pot for every passing official.

And all of this is just a prelude for the wedding of the year, during which Romina (Érica Rivas) finds the best day of her life ruined by the sudden realisation that she isn’t the only guest her husband has been bedding. Perhaps only Uma Thurman’s Bride in Kill Bill has retaliated more strongly to a spoiled walk down the aisle. A lucky cook and a guest hurled through a plate-glass window are amongst the stages of off the scale female rage, leading to a stand-off with her cake-knife wielding husband.

The frustrations and foibles of Argentine society flare up in the course of Wild Tales. Its pleasures, though, are universally cinematic. The yuppie-redneck battle is class war played out in Wile E. Coyote vs. Road Runner style, with a payoff updating EC horror comics’ grisly twist-endings. The rabbit-hole of civic hostility to individuals which Darin falls down is endemic in the 21^st century, and his vigilante’s revenge is a classic film fantasy.

Szifron told The Arts Desk that he dreamt these stories, and each episode, though set in distinct and swiftly realised worlds, has connective tissue spun from his own fears. The result is a baroque and bonkers entertainment, a huge Argentine hit which will make a fizzily exhilarating art-house night out.

Overleaf: watch the trailer for Wild Tales