The Spanish title is more apt: Savage Tales. Six short stories show various ways in which savagery persists in the highest levels of civilization. The titles appear against a montage of wild animals. The twist is that here the savagery is celebrated not rued. Where civilization was supposed to free us from savagery, as in the American Western, here the savagery liberates the characters from their civilization. As director Damian Szifron told the Palm Springs festival audience, "The theme is the pleasure of losing control. Releasing the beast."
In each story a modern frustration wells up until the character erupts. All the stories involve a furious revenge, with a broadening range of characters. To convey the tensions in modern life, ordinary sounds are amplified, like the luggage wheels in the opening shot.
In the pre-credit tale, the pilot turns out to be a lifelong failure who has collected the various teachers, friends, psychiatrist, who have thwarted him, on a flight he will crash into his parents.
In a diner the waitress recognizes a customer as the smalltown gangster who drove her father into bankruptcy and suicide. Now running for mayor, he is rude and abusive. As her anger and conscience struggle the cook takes over and kills him. She's content to return to the security and comfort of jail.
An Audi driver rages at a redneck who blocks his way. When the rich guy stops to fix a flat tire his nemesis stops and assaults him. The road rage turns into class warfare. Ironically, when they're found burned alive their clutch suggests it was a crime passionel.
When an explosives expert gets his car towed for an unjustified parking ticket his angry campaign for justice blows up his marriage, job, career and even shared custody of his daughter. When he blows up the tower's yard he becomes a local hero, Mr Dynamite. In jail his wife and daughter bring him a birthday cake and all the inmates and guards celebrate his day. His last act is blowing out the candles. Terrorism works.
A spoiled teenager's fatal hit and run accident leads to a steadily expanding chain of corruption as his wealthy father tries to get the family groundskeeper to take the rap for him. As the bribery balloons no-one is innocent. Even the humble groundskeeper raises his demands. When the father decides not to pay to save his spoiled son, his lawyer says it would be dishonourable for him to renege on his bribery of the the public prosecutor. When the boy decides to confess the greedy renegotiate their scheme. As the fall guy is led away an angry citizen kills him. Amid all the bribes and false honour the poor worker pays the price.
In the climax, a rich Jewish family's wedding, the bride explodes after the groom admits he had sex with a colleague who's a guest. The demure bride turns into a vengeful virago wreaking massive destruction, reducing the groom to tears, the ceremony to chaos, and her rival to a bloodied mess. When the newlyweds reconnect — making passionate love amid the ruins of the cake — their union feels more honest than the initial smiles and formality. Now their union expresses more passion than manners. The chaotic wedding is more honest than the ceremonial ritual was.
The anthology structure hearkens back to Italian neorealism, where separate short stories provided a wide-ranging survey of social issues. Apt for a celebration of the unruly, the film is exuberantly comic but with a black undercurrent. As its initial frustrations are so common, the film provides its audience with a greater catharsis than most comedies or tragedies. We're left calm of mind, frustrations spent.
