Review of Wild Tales (2014) by Harry W — 11 Jul 2015

With the name of Pedro Almodovar tagged to the film, Wild Tales instantly made it clear that talented people were involved in the production.

Of all the films to be nominated for the 2014 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film, Wild Tales proves to be best option on the list. I've never seen an anthology film with quite as many contrasting stories that all maintain such striking dramtatic strength yet little minimal relevance to each other. The only thing consistent over the course of the narratives in Wild Tales is the general mood of things as there is always a sense of tenacious drama with underlying dark humour. I found myself consistently embracing the intense drama presented by the stories and laughing pretty hard as well, meaning that Wild Tales was indeed an extremely powerful as an experience. This is easy to understand from the first moment in the film where Wild Tales unveils one of the most unconventional short stories I've ever seen depicted on screen. That was the first big surprise of the film, and from there on they just kept coming.

The only down point for the film would be the third story in the anthology entitled "The Strongest" which chronicles two men fighting frantically over a masculine dispute of agression in driving. It's not a bad segment, it's just overly simplistic and lacks the entertaining edge and characters that the rest of them maintain. This is because the segment is bereft of character and is constructed solely out of deadpan slapstick comedy in a heavily western setting and does not have that much of a story, making it a rather slow and long stretch for a story which does not have much to substantiate it. Luckily the film is an anthology film which means it has more stories that come after it instead of following the blank style of this one segment for the entire feature.And also, it gets it out of the way soon into the film proceeds back to better narratives.

With the exception of The Strongest, each narrative in Wild Tales contains strong characters who are all scripted to be of extensive levels of depth. Nobody is really an archetype, and every single character is of absolute importance to their respective stories which means that the extensive cast of the film really need to dedicate themselves. There is not a single cast member who falters as all the performances are rock solid and captivating, in particular the efforts of Ricardo Darin whose restrained yet occasionally striking dramatic efforts give a thoroughly sympathetic protagonist to the story "Little Bomb" while Erica Rivas' beautiful ability to capture an innocent and beautiful bride driven insane by her husband's infidelity in "Until Death Do Us Part" is as explosive as the bomb from Little Bomb. However, in a case where The Strongest is not an exception, every single story in Wild Tales is rich with tone. As well as dramatic strength and dark humour, the narratives in Wild Tales work out a sense of social commentary to make about edgy topics and social situations which are approached in a manner so blunt by director Damian Szifron that there is nothing to hide. The viewer is forced to confront the brutal reality of these situations and question the world around them as a means of establishing their stance on the events that occur.

The screenplay in Wild Tales is of absolute brilliance because the stories are so intriguing, the characters are so deep and the language is so insightful. But most importantly, the film is the furthest things from predictable. There is no telling what could come next, and that makes the intense experience of the film exciting because the unpredictability in Wild Tales ensures that it lives up to the promises presented by its title. The stories develop at their own natural pace which means the experience is a slow one, but I treasured every second of the film with the exception of The Strongest which I remain somewhat indifferent to. And yet even though there is so much complicated subtext in the themes of the film, the stories are simple on the surface which means they are easy to understand while the extent that the viewer is willing to think about them proves to be the source of thought provocation. And the entire time, there is always a sense of style in the film. The narratives are largely about how grim our world is in various fashions, and this feeling is ultimately reflected through the style of Wild Tales as the colour scheme is rather monochromatic. It presents a grim feel to the story which matches the intense atmosphere, and the cinematography always matches the drama through either capturing everything up close with claustrophobic intensity or from a distance to show just how empty the cold and dark world around the characters truly is. The style of the film is a subtle element, and yet it captures the manic mood of the story very nicely.

Lastly, the film is made more atmospheric by its use of sound. The rare use of diegetic music in Wild Tales adds tension to it, but most of the time the drama is flourishing so much that the intensity develops when there is just silence and occasional subtle sound effects. The sound, or lack thereof in Wild Tales is truly an understated yet powerful dramatic asset to the success of the film, and it just goes to show how well the story develops its drama on its own and doesn't need Hollywood dramatization conventions to levate it any further.

So Wild Tales is a brilliantly written collection of stories with tenacious directorial work from Damian Szifron who grips the dark comedy and intense drama of the story all while the cast deliver performances as strong as the characters given to them.