Wild Tales - the most fun (yet tragic) foreign film of the year
Doing a quick search on IMDB I found the film Wild Tales with a photo of a sad girl looking stressed into the distance. Together with the 8.4 score, I was expecting a hard-hitting foreign film. But I was misled. Just like in almost every short story within the Argentine film Wild Tales.
Wild Tales (co-produced by Pedro Almodóvar) is a collection of six short black comedies about, well, revenge, mostly.. In the grand scheme of things you could say it's about situations where people in modern society reach a tipping point. Where minor things lead to big explosions.
May it be by the rules of the government, like a guy who's car is towed while there was no way for him to know he wasn't allowed to park where he did — he also happens to be an explosives expert. Or a wealthy corrupt father, who wants to do the best thing for his family by bribing the authorities, but is pushed so hard he backs out of everything.
And then there's the slick guy driving his nice car on a deserted highway. He comes across a slow moving worn down car which won't let him pass. When he finally speeds past the car, he insults the driver for a while before continuing his trip. But as you might expect, this doesn't end well for him (to say the least) — it was the best short of the film in my opinion, although everyone might have a different favorite.
Basically Wild Tales is just a film you have to experience, preferably with a larger audience. It might be a bit weird to go to the cinema to watch six short films instead of a feature length film. But as the selection is so consistently good, and they all follow the same theme, there's no reason to be bothered by it.
And although it might all seem fun and games from the outside, all the stories have a realistic backstory. Some are very tragic even — hey, that's what black comedies are about right? And it's the most fun I've had watching a foreign film in quite a while.
