Surprise, surprise. A wide (kinda) release for a Spanish language film, that's sub-titled, in a region such as this, where even film festivals struggle to find an audience (other than for 'those' 'specialty' flicks).
Needless to say, anything that supposedly corrupts audience members in this region has been excised, so you can be sure that your moral compass remains intact even after viewing the sinful acts committed by the main leads in the 6 shorts that unfold.
The first one, beginning something as a slow-burn dramatic thriller, was the perfect kinda short to grab everyone's attention by the eyeballs with its pitch-perfect/ironically poetic denouement.
The 2nd one, consistently enough, continues the introduced theme of revenge, while being consistently slow-burn enough, ends with an appropriate (although a tad lesser) display of irony.
The 3rd one, on the other hand, plays out like Steven Spielberg's 'Duel', or 'Joyride', and is very tight, perhaps the tightest of the bunch, and very effective. Overarching the theme of revenge, and a huge touch of irony towards its final sequences, especially, make it really special, almost dominating the very strong initial short.
This almost immediately leads into the 4th segment - almost the longest of them all, and sets up the main lead as a lone/reluctant crusader against the typical stuff one Has to Put Up With nowadays, a la 'Falling down', or its local cousin, 'Dombivli Fast'. however, in spite of the time spent in characterization and the ironic sense of revenge, and pride, I felt it was the weakest of the bunch, since there was no sense of a hard payoff. However, this one had the strongest lead of them all, the Argentine De Niro - Ricardo Darin (Carancho / El secreto de sus ojos).
The one that comes next though, sweeps aside the theme of revenge, but follow up on a theme introduced in its previous segment, Bombita, of a corrupt system allowing certain perpetrators of crime not to pay the price, for a (ahem) price. The sense of irony, though, is at its strongest in the narrative of this segment, especially when one of the characters who's been meek and kinda cowed down by circumstances starts exhibiting atypical responses, that lead to...ahem...you gotta watch it, and enjoy it.
The final segment, embraces irony completely, and keeps you guessing right until its denouement, while eschewing revenge (umm, some might say its all about that emotion though - not for me) almost completely in favor of something even nastier, cutting-edge, and something that hurts immediately, right out in the open, almost completely naked (emotion). Powerful stuff, and wonderful in terms of the milieu against which the entire tale is enacted.
A thoroughly entertaining time at the movies, but to be enjoyed theatrically only at a progressive location, unlike where I got to watch.
