Wild Tales

It's been an odd couple of days. I turned 24 last Thursday, but I lost out on a chance to read some of my work on the radio, and I'm having to deal with some of the most mind-numbing bureaucracy at a job that's already eating my valuable writing time. This road to the breaking point has led me to an interesting piece of world cinema: The 2014 Argentinian film, Wild Tales.

 The film is divided into six vignettes:

• Pasternak features a group of passengers on a plane who slowly realise they all share a connection to one man;
• The Rats follows a waitress at a diner who must deal with the man who ruined her family, and the cook's offer to poison his food;
• The Strongest is about two motorists who try and out-do each other on a desert highway;
• Little Bomb tells the story of how a civil engineer's life comes crashing down over a disputed parking ticket;
• The Proposal is a "Bonnie Situation"-style scenario about a wealthy man trying to cover up his son's involvement in a hit-and-run;
• Till Death Do Us Part shows what can happen when a bride learns of her husband's infidelity at their wedding.

All these stories are built up really well, and include some of the funniest pitch-black humour I've ever seen in a film. It's sick, but it's also something we can all relate to in one way or another.

I originally saw this film last year, after having a minor breakdown in my previous job and leaving obscene notes on the front desk. I saw a strange irony in the fact that this was the running theme in the film: stories about ordinary people who are pushed to violent extremes by a society which makes no sense to them. Even if foreign language films aren't your thing, I highly recommend that you check this one out.

And if you were wanting to hear me on the radio, you can see what I'd originally planned to read here: https://authorvalpenny.com/2017/10/27/the-emporium-a-short-story-by-guest-author-andrew-roberts/

Or here: https://bookreviewstoday.info/2017/10/27/the-emporium-a-short-story-by-guest-author-andrew-roberts/

Special thanks to Val Penny for publishing the story. I hope it makes some interesting Halloween reading for you. Happy writing.