Wild Tales

Portmanteau pictures are notoriously inconsistent, but the shifts in tone and style are quite deliberate in Damián Szifrón's bleakly comic assault on Argentinian society. The opening vignette feels like the start of a whodunnit, as the passengers on a plane begin to realise why they are all on the same flight. Themes of revenge, class and taking the law into one's own hands are drawn out as a waitress serves a special dish to the gangster who destroyed her family, road rage is taken to extremes by a bourgeois businessman, and explosives expert Ricardo Darín loses patience with the petty officials who keep towing his car. However, a bride finds a way to have her cake and eat it after she discovers that her groom has been unfaithful. The satire is savage, the slapstick bruising and the insights into human nature are sharp and cynical. But what impresses most is Szifrón's versatility and control.