Inequality, injustice and the demands of the world we live in cause stress and depression for
many people. Some of them, however, explode. This is a movie about those people.
Vulnerable in the face of a reality that shifts and suddenly turns unpredictable, the characters of
Wild Tales cross the thin line that divides civilization and barbarism. A lover’s betrayal, a return
to the repressed past and the violence woven into everyday encounters drive the characters to
madness as they cede to the undeniable pleasure of losing control.
Damián Szifron on his latest film WILD TALES.
These tales sprang from the most unrestrained corners of the imagination. While I was working
to develop other projects – often dispirited by the fact that they were impossible to realize – I
began writing a series of short stories to vent my frustrations. When I put them together in one
volume, I realized that they were connected by a series of themes that provided unity and
coherence: they were all about catharsis, vengeance and destruction. And the undeniable pleasure
of losing control.
I frequently think of Western capitalist society as a sort of transparent cage that reduces our
sensitivity and distorts our bonds with others. Wild Tales presents a group of individuals who
live within this cage without being aware of its existence. But at that point where most of us
would repress – or get depressed – these people shift into gear.
This involuntary project came together so quickly that it rose on my list of priorities and found a
framework for production.
The telling of multiple stories represented an act of liberation for me, because it brought me back
to falling in love with reading. I remember it as if it were yesterday: discovering in the family
library a set of fiction anthologies that got my attention: Tales by the Masters of Crime, Tales by
the Master of Mystery, and Tales by the Masters of Terror. Later would come “Amazing Stories”
(produced by Spielberg), “New York Stories” (by Scorsese, Coppola and Woody Allen) and J.D.
Salinger’s “Nine Stories”. The paths that all of these works forged in my consciousness
configured my current space for creative liberty and experimentation.