At the core of every good story is its theme. It has to be relevant to the audience, speak to some profound human truth, and it needs to be well explored - the last point being the one I find most mediocre stories stumble upon. Wild Tales is not a mediocre story, however. A 2014 production from Argentina, Wild Tales is a perfect example of how to use an anthology, exploring its theme of vengeance through six different stories, each posing a different question. Even better, though, is how none of these questions is answered, not preaching to the audience but rather forcing them to self-reflect. So as a writing exercise, let’s take a closer look at just what question each story is asking and how different story elements bring these questions to the forefront.
The Rats - Characters
I’m skipping directly to the second story, The Rats, because the impact of the first short film is only truly felt after all the others. In The Rats, a waitress welcomes a customer who she happens to know well - he’s a loan shark from her hometown who drove her father to suicide and harassed her mother. She discusses it with the cook on duty, who suggests killing the man. The waitress firmly decides against it, but the cook secretly poisons his food anyway. When the waitress finds out, she’s upset, but she doesn’t try to stop the man from eating it - until the man’s son comes in and begins to eat as well, that is.
This character’s dilemma then begs the question: how far should we go for the sake of justice? The cook represents one extreme, believing that the ends justify the means, caring neither about the death of the innocent boy nor the potential of going to prison. The waitress, on the other hand, originally plans to get revenge by cursing the man, an insignificant punishment relative to the level of harm created. The two characters’ diametrically opposed opinions, with neither being correct, create the perfect context to force the audience to consider this question themselves.
The Strongest - Dialogue
In the third film, there are two main characters - a rich man and a working man. When blocked by the working man’s car on the road, the rich man cusses him out before speeding off. Soon, though, his car breaks down and the working man catches up. What ensues can best be described as a farce, as each man tries to get the better of the other. It escalates from curses and threats to property damage until ultimately leading to both men’s horrific death in a car fire. The film ends with a shot of their charred skeletons as the police speculate exactly what happened, with one suggesting that based on their apparent embrace it might have been a crime of passion.
With the final comment about the deaths perhaps being the result of a crime of passion, this film poses its question: what is worth getting revenge over? The investigators can’t imagine that such a horrible scene would be the result of something as basic as road rage, and it makes the audience question too whether this is a logical conclusion to the initial dispute. Once again, it obviously isn’t, but that just raises the question of what is worth getting revenge for if this is a possible, if highly unlikely, consequence.
The Little Bomb - Twist
One thing I have learned through my experience in France and the countries once colonised by it is that there is no greater evil on this planet than bureaucracy, and that’s exactly what the main character of Wild Tale's fourth story discovers as well. When his car is towed despite having parked it in a legal parking spot, he tries to complain. The first time he uses his words and fails. The second time, he resorts to violence and ends up losing his job and his family. Feeling he has no other option, he rigs his car to explode in the impound lot, which lands him in jail but wins him the love of his family and the people.
Given the differing outcomes of each revenge attempt, it seems that The Little Bomb wants us to consider what we hope to gain from revenge. Despite his goal of avoiding the fines, the man ultimately starts a social movement against government corruption. In a further unexpected twist, it seems his true happiness comes not from avoiding fines or causing social change but rather from the love and respect he has earned from his family and fellow inmates, something he had never planned on achieving in the first place. So the question is, what are our true motivations when we seek vengeance?
The Proposition - Foreshadowing
The Proposition centres on a family trying to figure out how to deal with their son’s hit-and-run which has resulted in the death of a mother and her unborn child. After many bribes and “additional fees”, it’s decided that the gardener will be paid to take the fall. There is a point where the son wishes to accept the consequences of his actions, only to be quickly ushered out by his mother. In the end, the gardener walks out with the policeman, only to be attacked and presumably murdered by the husband of the victim at the very last moment, a plan he previously mentioned in a news broadcast.
This foreshadowing serves as a way to have the audience face the haunting question long before we see its answer: are we getting revenge on the right people? The son should rightly be punished, though the corruption of the other characters makes them seem far more repugnant, and yet it’s the poor gardener who just wants money for his family who suffers. Wild Tales reminds us of everything we don’t see, everything that goes on behind the scenes, and forces us to ask ourselves whether or not we’re okay with getting revenge on the wrong people.
Till Death We Part - Archetypes
The final film depicts a wedding which, despite its happy start, soon goes terribly wrong when the bride realises that her now-husband has been cheating on her and even invited his affair partner to the wedding. In her anguish, she runs to the rooftop, where she encounters a chef who comforts her. Unsurprisingly, she proceeds to sleep with him, and when the groom catches them she threatens to ruin his life. The wedding proceeds awkwardly and, as when the bride throws the groom’s affair partner into a mirror, violently. In the end, though, the bride and groom make up, dancing as the wedding finally continues in the ruins of the reception hall.
The question here is the most basic question regarding revenge: should we forgive? What’s clever, however, is that the film doesn’t give the obvious answer of “yes”. By taking an archetypical image of a couple reconciling and contrasting it with their horrific actions, the audience can’t help but wonder if it might not have been better that the two stay angry and officially break up. Having been taught from a young age to forgive and forget, we rarely think to question it, but Till Death We Part gives the audience the perfect story to remind us that maybe it’s worth further consideration.
Pasternak - The Unknown
All these films bring us back to the very first - Pasternak. In it, all the passengers on an airplane slowly come to the realisation that they know the same man. Not only that, they’d all been unkind to him at some point or another in his life - it’s then that a stewardess shakily informs the passengers that the man, Pasternak, was actually on the flight crew and had entered the cockpit without coming out. Immediately, the passengers understand what's going on, and the plane starts to nosedive. The passengers beg Pasternak to calm down, but to no avail, and the film freezes just as they’re about to crash into Pasternak's parents' house.
Throughout all of this, though, we never see Pasternak, and this unknown man at the centre of everyone’s terror reminds us of another unknown that we all must fear: who would want to get revenge on us? I left this film until the end because it becomes much more horrifying in the context of the pieces that follow it because it forces the audience to consider not only their answers to the questions, but also other people’s. If someone out there wants to get revenge on you, how far would they go? Would it be over something worthwhile? What are they hoping to gain from it? Are you actually at fault? Would they forgive you? The most terrifying part of these questions is that we know that somewhere out there, there is someone willing to go to extremes for petty reasons, for no real reason at all, whether or not you’re to blame, and they wouldn’t be forgiving…
So be sure to leave me some likes and nice comments! Joking, of course, but I'd still love to know what you thought of Wild Tales and if there are any other films you feel did a similarly good job of exploring their central theme.
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