On the fall festival circuit, the movie I tell everyone too see is Argentinian Oscar entry “Wild Tales,” from writer-director Damián Szifrón, 39, which Sony Pictures Classics scooped up out of the Cannes competition and just opened for one LA run before broadening in January.
Among all the dark explorations of the human spirit on display, this tour-de-force collection of six insane, utterly identifiable tales of human beings pushed to extreme “primal instinctive behavior” (per the director)–from road rage-gone-wrong and a righteously precise explosive expert who fights a corrupt towing company, to the ultimate disastrous wedding–had universal appeal and was hugely entertaining.
Each carefully wrought jewel of story is more delicious and outrageous and hilarious than the last. Think Almodóvar on Tarantino steroids. With a Gustavo Santaolalla score. (Almodóvar’s Spanish company El Deseo produced.)
Sure enough, this hilarious movie hit big at Telluride and Toronto, where I interviewed him on my iPhone–first on video, then audio Q &A–below. He admits that he’s being courted by agencies and for many projects–duh–but intends to hang onto as much control over his next film as possible.
Keep an eye out for this must-see comedy which hits screens in early 2015.
Anne Thompson: It was a big deal to accepted into competition at Cannes.
Damián Szifrón: When I received the call that Thierry Fremaux loved “Wild Tales,” that was like a plot point. I remember at that moment I could see that the things I had been doing were going international. I felt that change in a physical way.
We are pacific, with a tendency to be good to each other, but when somebody bothers you, that changes your nature. Your nature is to want to defend or react. Sometimes you measure the cost or benefit of everything with each step you take. Animals don’t, they have the instinct. We have the instinct but we have the ability to not follow it. But the cost of repression is huge. You keep somethings inside you for years. Some crazy people are yelling and acting out, living in a fight that happened 20 years ago.
It was the biggest opening in Argentinian film history, ever, the biggest film of the year including “Frozen.”
I am interested in making something in English as the next step, I don’t know exactly what. I have received a huge amount of offerings and scripts, and am meeting people. I will take the time, a few months, to really think about it. I have scripts already written and could do them now. They all include humor in some form, but they are not comedies, including the western–it has a lot of humor too. I have not yet presented for financing. I think I could get it. I also want to write new scripts. I am interested in creating shows for TV, which I have done in Argentina, I have beautiful ideas for TV shows. It’s a wonderful dilemma, I can live with it.
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