I watched this movie last year, when it was just out, and I LOVED it. I found each story wickedly hilarious, I switched from laughs to being mouth-opened back and forth, I was engaged and surprised during the whole movie, and I didn’t want the last segment to be the last one, I wanted to keep on watching more stories. I left the Alcazar that day amazed and in love with the movie, I couldn’t wait to recommend it to all my friends and watch it again. Although I was very excited about this movie, I found it kind of far of reality as it was very dark, violent and brutal.
Months passed and I almost forgot about this movie, until I identified a breathtaking connection it had to reality; two of the stories in this movie are extremely similar to two recent disasters.
I’m sure you are all conscious about the unfortunate crash of the Germanwings Flight 9525 that occurred on March 24 2015. As we all know, this crash was intentionally caused by the co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, as he locked the captain out of the cockpit and then initiated a descent and crashed the plane into a mountain. This horrifying accident is all over the news and it has shocked people all around the world.
For those of you who haven’t watched the movie (I recommend you to do), the opening scene of this movie is so similar to this recent tragedy that it gives you chills. In the movie, it is the same scenario in which a pilot with clearly unresolved psychological issues, called “Pasternak”, locks himself in the cockpit and refuses to open the door and intentionally crashes the plane, killing all the passengers in it. This story is so precisely alike to the Germanwings flight crash, that it is as if it was a virtual reenactment of the film. Who knows? Maybe Andreas Lubitz had watched Wild Tales.
But more shocking yet, this is not the only stunning coincidence I realized. One of the tales in this movie is also incredibly similar to another unfortunate recent event - the case of Alejandro Ballón and Mateo Silva-Martinot.
You’ve probably heard about the terrible accident that occurred on Asia’s Boulevard on March 14 in which Mateo Silva-Martinot, a 22 year old son of an ex minister, runned over Alejandro Ballón two times, leaving him in a coma. Mateo Silva tried to escape but he was stopped by security. This lamentable case is similar to one of the stories in Wild Tales which features a similar car accident; a kid from a rich family (as Mateo Silva) hits a pregnant woman and drives away without helping her. The young man was definitely not sober, as well as Mateo Silva, and he did not try to help the person he had injured, the same as Mateo Silva. Although Mateo Silva tried to escape, as the kid in the movie did, he was not able to do so. Both of this stories are lamentable, but once again, it is shocking how similar they are, and once again, who knows? Maybe Mateo Silva Martinot has watched Wild Tales.
One of the director’s target in this movie is to let the viewer thinking on what we are capable of doing as human beings and how would we react if we “lose control”, which is related the movie’s moto “We can all lose control”. These two real events definitely prove the director’s point, as it clearly demonstrates what we as humans are capable of doing when losing control.
It is astonishing how close to the reality this tales are, when months ago they seemed almost impossible to happen. I find it chilling how Wild Tales, a movie I watched months ago with a lot of humour and considering it far from reality, is so similar to these current events. All of the tales in the movie seemed really humorous, crazy, brutal, and even inhumane, but now that all of that fiction has actually become reality, it is thrilling.
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.” ~Mark Twain
Reality is definitely capable of surprising us more than fiction. At the end, reality will surprise us, confuse us, overwhelm us, terrify us, and astonish us more than fiction ever will.