Relatos salvajes

This is a very watchable and often extremely funny anthology of six short films. The dialogue is in Spanish, the director and settings are Argentine. The stories are all slightly-over-the-top-realism in the manner of Almodóvar tinged with the dark surrealism of the Buñuel of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. The scenarios are graphic rather than subtle, but they all work well most of the time, because most of us can identify with the main characters, recognizing how little it can take to shake us from complacency into violence.

The official English title "Wild Tales" suggests madcap craziness. But these tales are savage ("selvaje" in the original Spanish), a word that better suggests the ferocious beast lurking not far under the skin of all of us. The beast can be unchained by nothing more complicated than being cut off by a driver who doesn't signal or finding that our car has been impounded for an unwitting parking infraction.

In the first and shortest episode, what appears to be an absurd series of coincidences linking all the passengers on a plane turns out to have a logical and sinister rationale. The ending explains why in the opening scene the woman checking in at the airport is told that she will not earn frequent flyer points for her trip! And the final, longest episode hilariously tracks the chaotic degeneration of a stereotypical Jewish wedding party, initiated by the bride's discovery that the groom has been cheating on her with one of the guests. This is not a film for young children or for people who aren't willing to admit how close they sometimes are to dissolving in animal rage.

Never watched any Argentine/Spanish film before. Actually, the number of foreign language (ie. other than English and Hindi) films I have watched till date is not even two digit. Still, this movie was mind-blowing!! Wild Tales, is a package of 6 short films which are dark and explosive comedies. All of them has the theme of revenge strikingly common and each one of them is unique and funny in its own way. Each one of them puts forth wild yet realistic situations. The first short story is the shortest of them and is shown pre-credits.Its story of a psych who is not even seen on the screen who makes revenge plan which ends on a bang giving us an overly wild ending. The second film slightly more dark and longer, will make you think before deciding what is right and what is wrong. Third one even longer, is my favorite alongside the fourth. Its violent and brutally hilarious with explosive ending(literally). The fourth one sheds light on realistic situation of a common man troubled by the abusive government system. Another explosion in the climax(again literally)! The fifth slightly less on humor quotient but portrays the human characteristic of greed perfectly. Its darker and has a shocking finale! Th last one, longest and wildest of them all will take you to one of the craziest weddings you have ever seen. Beneath its madness it subtly touches upon the issues of trust and betrayals in human relations.

Besides the common notion of revenge and letting oneself lose control in rage, all these tales also focus on how tiniest of our actions can lead to monstrous consequences. The comedy is satirical and dark still its outright hilarious in many scenes. There are many actors (each story has different cast), can't highlight anyone as most of them have done a good job. Director Damian Szifron executes all the ridiculous madness and explosive twists with sheer brilliance leaving dazed at the end of each story. The soundtrack is also quirky and beautiful.The two hours fly away like a breeze. Even if you don't understand the language you will be so invested that after sometime you won't even realize that you are watching a Non- English film. Highly enjoyable!

RATING: [4/5]

There will be times within us all when rage surrounds, when the urge to lash and kick the world compounds, when the consequence goes missing, and you're left distraught and wishing, that you hadn't set that foot outside the bounds. This result will more than likely cost you dear, as you cascade, crush, curtail all your fears, when adrenaline explodes, hackles raised you're on your toes, seeing red - but there is nothing else that's clear. As the dust begins to settle consequences, of your actions may reveal extreme expenses, incarceration in a place, after losing more than face, reputation and your life now in cessation.

This Argentine film that found itself nominated for the 2014 Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award comes to us from director Damián Szifrón who has crafted a feature film comprised of a series of 6 vignettes/small stories about human beings from all walks of (Argentine) life who are all tested and taken to their limits ... until they finally lose control. While mostly disastrous the film is also WILDly thrilling and wholly original in its daring cheekiness ... as the film is a bitter dark comedy (with tinges of brutal drama).

It is a film about a myriad group of people on a plane; a young waitress who still finds herself grieving over a family tragedy of the past; an encounter between two men from different social classes on a desolate highway; a man growing tired of the rat race of life in which we are all destined to lose; the aftermath of a horrible automobile accident; and a wedding reception like none you've ever seen before. All feature one or two characters taken to the edge ...

It is how each of them handles their various situations that give us our WILD stories. Fascinatingly grim at times, the film almost always miraculously produces laughter and grins. Much of the laughter might be heavily muffled as one chuckles under his/her breath as others around them fail to see the director's (WILDly) wicked sense of humor come into play in some of the film's intense situations; but the dark tone pervades the entire film.

While the film is most definitely tragic in many instances, Wild Tales is a comedy of errors about human nature and who we are. Some can watch this and most-likely not pick up even a hint of humor; but it is there ... and it is fantastically facetious.

Wildly thrilling. Wildly fun. Wildly original. It is courageously wild.

The movie is actually 6 short films, all related by brutal violence motivated by different situations. Family. Society. Government. It works very well like that, lasting over 120 minutes that go by quickly. It feels very fluid. Szifrón's eye is very precise. You can tell everything was very well thought. I wouldn't say this is a philosophical film, but it is clever entertainment, that makes you think if this wild tales are actually that wild... Even though this stories are taken to the extreme, everything feels somehow possible when you look back.

Darkly humorous. Watch it.