Most of these tales are laugh-out-loud funny and terribly poignant.
Wild Tales
Grade: A
Director: Damian Szifron (On Probation)
Screenplay: Szifron (The Bottom of the Sea)
Cast: Dario Grandinetti (Talk to Her), Maria Murull (The Bottom of the Sea)
Rating: R
Runtime: 122 min.
by John DeSando
You want to laugh at our rage against self-serving institutions? You want to chuckle at road rage gone scatological? How about the gigantic marriage ceremony gone bad? These three tales and three macabre more form the nucleus of a dark comedy from Damian Szifron unlike any you have ever seen.
Wild Tales, produced by Pedro Almadovar, is a violent burlesque about our obsessions and our tempers lightened with our comically absurd attitudes toward societal imperatives and institutions over which we have little control. Although set in Argentina, the frustrations are universal.
How many of us have seethed at seeing our cars have been hauled away for illegal (or not) parking. In a rare case when we are right, the bureaucracy will test us in the extreme to prove our innocence. As in a short story here, not all of us have the explosive resources to get back at the impersonal forces.
Although Wild Tales (an appropriate title given the bizarre tales) makes light of the frustrations of modern living, the first episode depicting the strange coincidences of airline passengers’ intersecting lives is so apropos for today’s Lufthansa tragedy as to leave you breathless. You’ll know my reference when you see the film.
And see it you must if you haven’t had some good laughs recently with so-called romantic comedies. Although one or two of the tales are not as mirthful as the others (the wealthy family involved in paying bribes is dull and long ), make no mistake, writer-director Szifron, will exact a measure of unease as you recognize your secret attitudes about gender and class in these six “wild tales.”
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
