Damián Szifron makes the moment when ordinary irritation turns into appalling behaviour funny and recognisable. We rate his compact, carefully paced storytelling; he is less reliable when he lets retaliation carry on after the joke has landed.
Fi1m perspective
In the opening plane story of Wild Tales (2014), each new piece of information makes the encounter more absurd. Damián Szifron and fellow editor Pablo Barbieri Carrera allow us time to register each discovery without letting us get ahead of the next one. The short format suits him. He can establish a grievance quickly, and he does not need a full-length plot to make something of it. His comedy works because bureaucracy, class resentment and wounded pride give the bad behaviour a recognisable starting point.
Television gave his appetite for contained stories an early home: he created and directed Los simuladores (2002–2003). His early features included El fondo del mar (2003) and Tiempo de valientes (2005), the latter already combining comedy with character conflict and social observation. After an extended period of writing, Wild Tales became his international breakthrough. Its six separate revenge stories connect through their anger rather than through a continuing plot. He later directed his first English-language feature, the thriller To Catch a Killer (2023).
Wild Tales also shows how much he needs actors who can make the grievance matter before the retaliation begins. Ricardo Darín gives Simón Fisher an accumulated impatience that suggests a life beyond the complaint. Érica Rivas keeps Romina's anger in the wedding story capable of changing direction, rather than simply increasing the volume. We laughed at the wedding because Rivas made that fury so unpredictable. Both performances let us recognise the people even when Szifron is asking us to accept increasingly absurd behaviour.
Production designers María Clara Notari and Josè Massolo make the wedding an occasion at which everyone is expected to behave, which makes the breaches of decorum funnier. Gustavo Santaolalla's forceful music suits the broad comedy, though it sometimes underlines what the actors have already made clear. A few stories also run beyond their useful length, and the middle becomes repetitive. We prefer him when he trusts the pace he and Barbieri Carrera find in the opening, rather than prolonging the retaliation. Start with Wild Tales, but do not expect all six stories to know when to stop.
Biography
Damián Szifron is an Argentine film and television director and screenwriter. He was born on 9 July 1975 in Ramos Mejía, Argentina.
He studied cinema with film theorist Ángel Faretta and began working in television in the 1990s. Szifron created and directed the series Los simuladores (2002) and its follow-up Hermanos y detectives (2006). His feature films include El fondo del mar (2003), Tiempo de valientes (2005) and Wild Tales (2014), on which he also served as writer and editor.
Szifron directed the 2023 thriller To Catch a Killer. Wild Tales competed at the Cannes Film Festival, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and won BAFTA and Goya awards in the same category.
