cold tales
by Douglas Messerli
Damián Szifron (writer and director)
Relatos Salvajes (Wild Tales) / 2014
We follow a young model (María
Marull) about to embark on an airplane journey. Striking up a conversation with
a man across the aisle, she discovers that he is a music critic, and mentions
that she once had a relationship with a musician that ended somewhat badly.
When asked his name, she replies, only to discover that the man across from her
is the one who savagely reviewed his work, ending the musician’s career. Soon
others, overhearing their conversation, begin to reveal that they have been
teachers and acquaintances with the same man named Pasternak; indeed everyone
on the plane have been involved with this difficult, apparently mentally ill
being. His psychiatrist, also on the flight, attempts to pound on the cockpit
doors where, we discover, Pasternak is now in control. “It was all your
parents’ fault,” declares the psychiatrist, hoping to divert the obvious
destruction of all trapped on board. The film cuts to an elderly couple sitting
on a terrace in their back yard as the plane appears low on the horizon and
dives down toward a couple who are obviously the parents who have raised this
sudden mass murderer. The film’s credits begin to roll.
The stories that follow are all similar in theme, dark tales of strange
compulsion, of dark interactions between unknown individuals, and utter
frustration with the injustices of everyday life which end in violence and
death. In “Las Ratas” (“The Rats”), a waitress (Julieta Zylberberg) in an
isolated diner one rainy evening suddenly encounters a customer who previously
destroyed her family, having forced the sale of their home—an event that killed
her father—and tried to force her mother into a sexual relationship, the reason
why they now live in such a clearly isolated spot. In tears, she confesses her
situation to the cook (Rita Cortese).
An ex-felon, the cook argues that she should put rat poison in his food.
Despite her hate, the waitress refuses the offer, but the cook proceeds with
her plan. Only after serving the beast his French fries does she realize the
cook has conspired to kill him. When the monster, now running for political
office, is joined by his son, the waitress rushes to remove the poisoned food,
but the belligerent diner refuses to have them “warmed up,” and his son joins
him in consuming the fries, soon after, becoming sick to his stomach. In
horror, the waitress grabs the plate, spilling its contents to the floor, the
ogre rising to threaten her in response. As he moves toward the girl, the cook
suddenly appears behind him, stabling him in the back several times, a pool of
blood welling where he falls to the floor, trapping the waitress underneath his
body. The police arrive; who will be found guilty we can only wonder?
In “El más fuerte” (“The Strongest”), a driver, Diego (Leonardo
Sbaraglia) on an isolated highway, is trapped behind a meandering old and
dented car, whose driver, Mario (Walter Donado), refuses to let him pass. As
Diego finally gets an opportunity to speed around the other driver, he insults
him and gestures a profanity. Further along, Diego’s car gets a flat tire, and
he is forced, rather ineffectually, to change it. Soon after Mario catches up
with him, proceeding to attempt to smash in his windows, defecating and
urinating upon the front windshield. Terrified at the perverse turn of events,
Diego finally leaves his car to push Mario and his vehicle into the river
nearby; but when he observes that Mario has survived and is about to return to
the highway, he attempts to run him down, overshooting his position and ending
up on top of the other car. Unable to free himself, Diego is again attacked by
Mario, who first tries to choke him on his own seat belt and later beats him.
Diego reacts in response, beating Mario over the head with an emergency fire
extinguisher. Finally, entering from the car trunk, Mario makes his way back
into the automobile, stuffing a lit rag into Diego’s gas tank. As the two
attempt to fight it out for escape, the explosion finally consumes everything,
leaving a tow truck driver who Diego has earlier called to observe, along with
the police, the two charred bodies bound in a ghoulish embrace.
“Bombita” (“Little Bomb”) is also about explosions, as we observe
demolition expert, Simón Fisher (Ricardo Darin) organize and blow up a series
of old grain silos. He calls his wife soon after, promising to pick up a cake
on his way home for their daughter’s birthday. He pulls into a parking place
outside the bakery and picks up and pays for the cake, only to discover that in
the interim his car has been towed, even though there seems to be no evidence
that he has been located in a no-parking zone. Forced to pay for the towing
despite his insistence that he done no wrong, he arrives home late, the party
nearly over. His wife (Nancy Dupláa), angered by his numerous excuses of
tardiness over the years, demands a divorce.
At the city parking division, not only does the city employee refuse to
hear his plea of innocence, but sarcastically denies the possibility: he has
been towed, so he is automatically guilty. Angered by the smug illogic of the
employee, Fisher grows violent, security is called, and he is briefly
imprisoned. Upon meeting with his company lawyer, he is told that his job has
been terminated, the company fearful of the publicity. Without a job, his
custody of his daughter is called into question. At a new job interview, a
secretary refuses to allow him to see a company head, and when he attempts to
return to his car, he discovers it has been towed once again.
Furious with the marital and bureaucratic injustices of his life, the
former demolition expert plants a “little bomb” in his car and, as he dines
nearby, watches it being towed away. The bomb goes off in the towing yard,
destroying property without killing anyone, proving that the bomb expert knew
precisely what he was doing. Now in jail, he has become a public hero, and the
last scene shows a visitation by his wife and daughter who bring him a cake
which he and the inmates consume in joyful celebration.
“La Propuesta” (“The Proposal”) concerns a hit-and-run accident that
kills a pregnant woman and her unborn child. The rich boy who has been driving
has clearly been protected by his family throughout his life, and now that he
is involved with a death, they call in their lawyer who suggests a possible
solution: together, the lawyer, father (Oscar Martínez), and mother convince
their faithful caretaker, Casero (Germán de Silva), to take the blame by
insisting that he, after drinking, had borrowed the car and driven throughout
the city. In return for his confession, the family will pay him $500,000 and
care for his wife and children, assuring him that, at most, he will receive
only one year in prison.
The scheme is undone, however, when the local prosecutor (Diego
Veláquez) perceives that the car mirrors are not at the right height and angle
for the driver of his small proportions. To put the “proposal” back on track,
the lawyer offers the prosecutor one million dollars for his silence. The
put-upon father is about to go along with the proposal when the lawyer himself
demands another large sum and the caretaker, overhearing some of the
bargaining, demands a further payment in the form of a city apartment. A final
request for $30,000 just for operating expenses jinxes the entire deal, as the
father determines to offer no funding and force his son, for the first time in
his life, to own up to his behavior.
After a great deal of further bickering, the “legal” crooks all agree to
split the million dollars up between them, but as the caretaker is led away in
handcuffs, the dead woman’s vengeful husband rushes forward to kill the
innocent Casero.
The final long “tale,” Hasta que la muerte nos separe” (“Until Death Do
Us Part”) begins as a wedding celebration for a lovely and apparently loving
young couple, Romina (Érica Rivas) and Ariel (Diego Gentile). In the midst of
the celebrations, however, Romina perceives that a fellow worker whom her
husband has invited to the affair is more than a casual friend and discerns, by
calling her cell phone, that she has the same number that her new husband had
claimed was that of his guitar teacher. Mortified by the discovery and, soon
after, by the admission of by her husband of the sexual relationship, Romina
rushes from the party, and, in an almost suicidal state of mind, escapes to the
hotel roof. A kitchen worker discovers her at the very edge of the edifice in
tears and gently attempts to comfort her, reminding her that love must be
stronger than a single event.
His consolations appear to have an effect as she calms down and attempts
to kiss him for his help. The kiss, however, suddenly turns into a passionate
embrace and, soon after, results in animal sex, which Ariel and his cohorts,
rushing after Romina, shockingly encounter. Suddenly the vengeful Romina
declares that she will spend the rest of their relationship having sex with
every man she meets, torturing Ariel until either he dies of leaves her his
entire estate. Sickened by her behavior, he nonetheless, requests that they
return to their guests. She has now become almost a new woman, forcefully
leading the guests in celebratory dances, and grabbing up the arm of the woman
with whom her husband has had the affair, spinning with her in what begins as
an almost ritualistic revel which ends, somewhat predictably, with her
loosening her hold so that the girl crashes into a mirrored wall.
Blood is spattered everywhere, doctors are called. Now drunk, Romina
takes out her fury on the groom’s mother and others. The mother, in turn,
attacks the new bride and other family members join in the melee until each are
peeled away, standing as opposing forces in the grand ballroom. Picking up a
knife, Ariel seems intent on his own revenge, but simply cuts out a piece of
wedding cake, pushing it into his mouth. Approaching his new wife, now sprawled
out on the ballroom floor, he offers his hand which, finally, she accepts as
they dance slowly across the floor, kissing—at first rather cautiously, but
gradually more and more intensely—and falling into an intense passionate
session of lovemaking. As the embarrassed guests tiptoe out, the couple proceeds
to engage in sex across the table, fragments of the wedding oozing onto the
floor.
Such tales may indeed seem “wild” to U.S. audiences, but, in fact, they
belong to a long tradition in Latin American and French literature. Their roots
can be traced back to Medieval times, taken up again by 19th century writers
such Edgar Allen Poe, through the stories of Petrus Borel, and others. In the
late 19th and 20th century numerous writers continued the tradition, one of the
most notable of them being the Cuban writer Virgilio Piñera, whose Cuentos fríos (Cold Tales) might suggest a name for the genre.* These tales of
hysteria, passion, anger, hate, and murder, presented from an icy cold
objective point of view, reveal that in their obsessional perspectives of
reality, love and hate can become so intertwined that any warm emotion can
suddenly be converted into cold-blooded wrath and freezing anger can boil the
blood to such a passionate intensity that everything blows up.
For years, translator/friend Rick Gilbert has lobbied for me to publish
just such an anthology as in this film Argentine director Szifron has quite
brilliantly achieved, while contributing another group of works to the genre.
*I published one of the tales from
Piñera’s Cold Tales, “The Face” in 1001 Great Stories, Volume 1 (2005) on
my Green Integer press.
Los Angeles, March 14, 2015
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (March 2015).
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