Revenge, served at various temperatures, is the unifying theme of this Oscar-nominated Argentinian compendium of six blackly comic short films making a welcome return from last year's festival.
All concern attempts to get even that go wildly out of control, though there are telling differences of tone between the six, from the absurdism of early Woody Allen to an almost Chekhovian fatalism.
This close to the Germanwings disaster, the first story raises a laugh that may turn sour in the mouth: a plane load of people discover too late that the one thing they have in common is that they all pissed off the same person. But later episodes are purely and cathartically funny.
At times they may deliver vicarious pleasure to the most even-tempered of us: in a brilliantly controlled blend of suspense and slapstick, an episode of road rage escalates with alarming speed; a man who gets his car towed away once too often just happens to be an explosives expert; a waitress in a restaurant recognises a diner as the man who destroyed her family and he gets something worse than spit in his food.
But slowly we realise that simmering beneath the surface of the stories is a shared sense of the malaise in the Argentinian social order, of rage at the corrupt wielding of power that leaves the individual helpless.
When the towed-away driver asks, "Where is the office where apologies are made?" he sounds silly but we can't help wishing he didn't. Another story, in which a rich family tries to duck responsibility for a crime, taps with unerring precision into the country's class divide.
There's plenty going on here, but the films can be enjoyed simply as anarchic fun. Don't expect happy endings, though. The final story, in which the consequences of marital infidelity erupt before the cake is cut, suggests that the best we can ever hope for in human relations is an uneasy truce. Recommended.
Cast: Ricardo Darin, Oscar Martinez, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Erica Rivas, Rita Cortese, Julieta Zylberberg
Director: Damian Szifron
Running time: 121 mins
Rating: R16 (violence, offensive language, sex scenes) Spanish with English subtitles
Verdict: Black comedy with subtext galore.
- TimeOut