Of the five shortlisted films for this year's Oscar for Best International Film, Wild Tale is probably the one with the best viewing experience. It consists of six independent short stories, including a black comedy, a strong story but not straightforward, with unexpected twists. They are both social news in the media and highly compressed dramatic conflicts.
For many movie fans, Wild Tales is a more exciting A Touch of Sin. However, I think it is also like Romania's Stories from the Golden Age in 2009, a collection of short stories by several Romanian new wave directors to satirize the country's absurd years. Wild Tales has a similar structure, but it was done by a single director. I thought that there would be some interspersed clues between different paragraphs of the movie, but it turned out not. I once thought that the car might be a coincidence proposition, but it turned out not to be. This kind of story structure will bring some benefits. It is very easy for the audience to watch. After watching one, they can’t wait to the next one. However, the joyful grievances and enmities will cause problems, because of the lack of internal unity. As a completed movie, it is too easy for us to distinguish between good and bad. What's more, by the end, you may have forgotten a passage in it.
Wild Tale does not escape from the social reality that it wants to criticize—it can be seen from the title of the film. The National Geographic PPT with subtitles at the beginning is an intuitive metaphor of the animal world, a contemporary fable of birds and beasts ("A Touch of Sin" also has similar animal symbol images). Starting from the hot-air plane passage, the movie has already explained the crux of the problem: everyone feels that they are innocent and implicated, but in fact, everyone acts as a perpetrator in reality. From female passengers to engineers to housekeepers, they all show some instinct for profit. In the end, there is always someone who can't bear it and runs out to solve the problem, even if he is a mental patient.
This kind of bitter theme can be filmed in a serious manner, like "A Touch of Sin", interspersed with traditional folk art within a drama to create an atmosphere of compassion. It can also be done like "Wild Tales" and Tales from the Golden Age, where the tragedy is turned into a black absurd comedy. In addition, there is the most difficult kind, like Kusturica, who gets carried away with frenzy and frolicking, and can turn comedy into sadness in the end.
Most of the passages in "Wild Tale" can find similar movie blueprints. For example, Road Fighting seems like Spielberg's debut work "Duel". The "most normal" little bomb section, which keeps accumulating negative emotions, is like a smaller version of Joe Schumacher's "Urban Hero". The incident of a rich boy bumping into someone is completely a metamorphosis of the 2013 Berlin Golden Bear Award film "Children's Pose", especially for when the son of a coward is crying. The last crazy wedding, many people bluntly said, it is simply the safety notice video that appeared before the "Gone Girl" took off. This aspect illustrates the convergence of contemporary social problems, such as the widespread discrimination caused by the gap between the rich and the poor, the lies and deceit of the rich and the middle class, people are full of hostility, and there is nowhere to relieve the pressure. On the other hand, it probably also shows the inferiority of animals in human beings, exclusion of others and selfishness, and the law of the jungle.
I like the road fight part the most, it gives people a sense of substitution in terms of movie emotions. The familiar opening is the closest to us, and the tragic ending is the farthest from us. In the city, whether you drive yourself or take a taxi, drivers are ready to swear and are in danger of an imminent volcanic eruption. But who would have thought that such a quarrel would end up in a dead end and become a joke by the police.
At the parking lot, the story came to the engineer again. I once felt that the ending was like a dream of freedom, and the success was so unreal. Young people like dog-blood weddings the most. In their view, a happy and sacred wedding scene woule be like the bride and groom quarrel, fight, vomit and splatter blood.
In "Wild Tales", the director explained things more clearly, which made people laugh and cry. Fortunately, he has no false compassion, using religion and morality to influence the world—although the wild kiss at the end reminds people of Paul Fellini's "Forgiveness is Love", "I thought that as long as you prove that you are wrong, I was right, and all I really longed for was love. I thought it would make me feel better if you were punished for the sins you committed, but all I really longed for was love.” But in fact, more people will doubt love than believe in love.
Limited by the fragmented narrative form (even if most of the fragments are complete and wonderful), I would prefer to see that "Wild Tale" can be assembled into a complete carapace with lines on it and There are cracks, depicted characters, and painted little figures. With the help of these natural or artificial patterns, it is divining the fate of this country and human society. "Wild Tale" doesn't have to be like a classic three-part movie that is linked together, but if there are some echoing embellishments scattered in it, it may allow us to see a distant continent more clearly. A sign was erected on it with a few large characters: Welcome to Argentina.
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