Wild Tales

Argentine bachelor's stories with a bloody coat of paint, sometimes insanely convulsive (the introductory Pasternak barely holds up as a TV sketch, even if the authors of Pečený sněhulák would tear off Szifron's hands), attacks on social criticism killed in shallow morals (jBombito and a story with a wreck), all character limits, structurally and ideologically defensible by the fact that they are "stories" and similar reductivity pertains to them. There is nothing to object to - I just claim that this is an unbalanced film, more for fun than really entertaining and it is explicitly shallow in its more ambitious moments. Only the final wedding is really "wild", but even then one’s smile is replaced by a slightly raised eyebrow. Purely filmed, audience-friendly, but otherwise absolutely amounting to consumer goods. It can be justified by the fact that the (un) ordinary absurdity of existence coincides with the films of Roy Andersson, but Szifron's film does not even come close to its penetration and vision. [60%] (10/09/2014)

I didn’t really know what to expect from Wild Tales. A movie consisting of short stories usually has some interesting parts and some not so. But this movie has executed it perfectly. In my opinion, not one of those six short stories was mediocre, let alone bad. Some were prefect and some were “only” great. After I watched this movie, I realized that I have never watched a short-story movie that would already make me excited to see another story right after I’ve finished one, but Wild Tales have managed to do this with zero problems and won me over with each story. I liked the one where the two guys beat each other up by that bridge the most. I watched this for the Challenge Tour 2015. (09/04/2015)

Latin American Czech show Bachelors but this time cynical. None of the short stories lack a basic idea (if nothing else), but without exception, everyone here more or less lacks more elaboration of the introductory "cynical teaser", it does not hit the right note, it lacks gradation and punchline. Szifron has good ideas, but someone else should have written it for him in the form of a script. This is a waste of good potential, which still works mainly thanks to the duo of segments "Auto squabble" and "gritty bash". (01/05/2016)

Probably the best movie entertainment of the year so far. Six stories packed black humour (and surprisingly brutal at times) with the common theme of the exasperation and the rage of ordinary people in ordinary situations that lead to situations that are not at all ordinary. The stories are uniform in terms of quality – of course, there are some that I liked less than others (the best for me were, redneck, the bomber engineer and the ruined wedding), but I wouldn’t say any of them is a significant drop in quality. If I had to complain about anything, is that some of the twists and turns were predictable a bit earlier than they should. A point less for that, but highly recommended nonetheless. (25/09/2014)

The calculated push for mischievous points forces the viewer to not take the creative effort too seriously. That’s quite a shame, considering that morally I only liked the engineering odyssey and that the wedding revelry offered everything that its predecessors didn't, i.e., above all, a twisted merry-go-round of absurdity that presents those cynical life messages with utter sovereignty and ease, as if life itself had written them. I can't help but think that the filmmakers were capable of more. (30/12/2014)