1. 10
March Release
Damián Szifrón’s Wild Tales was one of the nomi-
nees for this year’s Best Foreign Film Oscar, but
while it’s undoubtedly an entertaining and at times
thrilling film, compared to some of the other nomi-
nees (eventual winner Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida,
Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Lethiathan) and other world
cinema gems from the last twelve months, it feels
rather toothless.
Made up of six short films, Szifrón crafts witty,
pitch black versions of modern life starting with an
elaborate act of personal vengeance and ending
with the wedding from hell. The wedding, entitled
Until Death Do Us Part, stands
out as the funniest segment
as a past infidelity tears the
happy day apart. With game
performances from Érica
Rivas and Diego Gentile as
the ‘happy’ couple, the story
goes from one extreme to the
next, refusing to slow down as Szifrón reaches his
crescendo and doesn’t so much bring the film to a
close as leave it careering for the nearest wall.
Before this though, we’ve witnessed the results
of several other people being pushed to their lim-
its. Ricardo Darín channels Michael Douglas in Lit-
tle Bomber as a demolitions expert who takes re-
venge on the state after a series of parking tickets;
then there’s The Strongest, where a case of road
rage leads to a seriously tense car chase and one
perfectly timed punchline.
Breaking these up are the two bleakest seg-
ments, The Rats and The Proposal. The ‘rat’ in
question is a mobster recognised by a young wait-
ress whose family was ruined by him; the waitress
agonises over how to take revenge while the cook
encourages her to murder him, culminating in a
bloody burst of violence peppered with Szifrón’s
snappy dialogue.
The director is at his bitterest in The Proposal,
taking down the rich with the bluntest of satire.
After a young bachelor runs down a pregnant
woman his father negotiates a deal with his law-
yer, a crooked detective and his gardener. If the
laughs were broad and hearty
until now, they become more
hushed as the characters are
shown to have no concern for
the victim, only the effects of
the incident on them. Szifrón
clearly doesn’t throw light
punches and The Proposal is
the most challenging story here.
Szifrón crafts six wonderful stories, keeping a
remarkably high standard throughout, but by nev-
er letting the pace drop he occasionally slips into
the derivative. Wild Tales is watching a director try
to outdo himself every twenty minutes; trying to
be more shocking, more satirical, producing more
awkward situations and becoming, almost inevi-
tably, more predictable. These tales are certainly
wild, but they’re also exhausting.
Matthew Tilt
‘Szifrón crafts six wonderful
stories, keeping a remarkably
high standard throughout’
Director: Damián Szifrón
Starring: Liliana Ackerman, Luis
Manuel, Érica Rivas
Running time: 122 mins
On limited release from March 27th
Wild Tales