Wild Tales Review

Damián Szifron’s Wild Tales (Relatos Salvajes) is a pitch black comedy satirizing contemporary Argentine society. Like with Milos Forman’s Czech films, The Loves of a Blonde and The Fireman’s Ball, Szifron chooses not to ridicule authority figures, instead focusing on ordinary people as they engage in various, escalating acts of vengeance, presenting us with a culture in decay, eating away at itself, as corruption, both personal and institutional, run rampant. A timely release given the current political scandal involving the mysterious death of federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman and allegations of cover ups concerning a 1994 car bombing of a synagogue.

Broken up into six, stand-alone stories, Wild Tales stands out from other anthology films in scope and execution; the writing remains consistent,  with each succeeding tale building thematically on its predecessor. In each case, a protagonist feeling they have been wronged by a corrupt individual or institution, seeks out justice through their own corrupt means, as if licit avenues have been closed to them.

In one of the more poignant segments (titled “Bombita” or “Little Bomb”), Fischer, a demolitions expert, played by Argentine leading man Ricardo Darin (The Secret in their Eyes) takes on a Kafka-inspired bureaucracy over a parking violation, which causes him to lose his job and his family. Feeling oppressed by the very institution that should protect his interests (ie. the law) he takes matters into his own hands. We see a variation of this theme with each instalment, where corruption is fought with corruption, with insult piled on top of injury. A seemingly banal event, snowballs into absurd, if plausible, savagery. But instead of becoming tedious and repetitive, we see each protagonist tackle the situation their own way, revealing their ingenuity and moral shortcomings in the process.

To his credit, Szifron avoids attacking the government or popular agents of authority directly; his aim is not to mock the ruling elite but the people who reveal themselves as victim and perpetrator in a bitterly vicious scramble for vengeance. The end result is that with each successive segment, the implication becomes clear: something is not quite right. Argentina is depicted as a country where an ordinary person cannot persevere playing by the rules; a society overwhelmed by corruption to the point where it has become common place, mundane even, a society where playing dirty is the only means to an end. To do otherwise is inconceivable.

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The Buenos Aires of the film, where a number of the tales take place, is shown to be typical, modern metropolis; clean, picturesque but under the surface, a kind of rot festers. In the opening moments of “Bombita” we see Fischer set explosives in the foundations of a grain silo that implodes into a heap of rubble with the press of a little red button. In this moment Szifron is presenting us with a model of his universe, a society – seemingly intact – on the verge of total collapse, that can be triggered by the smallest action. A parallel that can be found in an earlier segment where an insult, another frivilous gesture, from one motorist to another, triggers a bitter fight to the death. That such triviality cannot be ignored but serves as catalyst for their own destruction is exactly the point Szifron is making.

That the quality does not waver through the various segments is a testament to Szifron’s abilities as a writer, which is further reinforced by his sense of style and eye as a director.  Furthermore, in presenting this decaying society,  Szifron does not seem to blame a particular ideology or political faction. Instead, he shows us a world where corruption has not only become endemic, enveloping every aspect of daily life but that the public has come to tolerate it.



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