Director: Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu
"I wanted to write a script that was free from the disgusting tyranny of political correctness – that gross softening of human experience through outdated and cowardly morality. My characters descend into their own hell and, after bouncing fiercely between what is right and what is wrong, find the path towards a reconciliation within themselves. I wanted the characters to live intensely and to pay the price for it," Scriptwriter Guillermo Arriaga
Amores Perros is an impressively directed, intricately plotted Mexican film that is disturbingly violent, overly dramatic, and filled with enough blood to please the most jaded Peckinpah or Tarantino fan. It charges out of the gate before the credits role with heart pounding abandon. We see two young men being pursed in their car at top speed through the streets of Mexico City. In the back seat is a rottweiller who is bleeding all over the apolstry. Passing through one red light too many the car smashes into another car and all hell breaks loose.
The film is told in three criss-crossing stories that all center around this terrible automobile crash but the film isn’t about the crash. Instead it is about a series of characters each of who confront the delusions of their dreams and witness their lives spiral into betrayal and violence after the crash.
The film’s first section is titled ‘Octavio and Susanna’ and involves Octavio a young man (Gael Garcia Bernal) who has fallen in love with his brother’s wife, Susanna. He concocts a sure fire scheme to raise a lot of cash and take her away with him by using his pet rotweiller to fight in dog fights. The section is quickly paced and full of gritty violence and due to the close-ups and hard edits has a latently violent feel throughout.
The second section titled ‘Daniel and Valerie’ is about an upper class magazine editor Daniel Alvaro Guerrero who leaves his wife for a blonde Mexican model Vanessa Bauche. This episode is sort of a cross between the perverse wit of Bunuel and the drama of a telenovella soap. On the day that Valerie moves in with Daniel she becomes a victim in the car accident. It debilitates her for a while but fortunately she has her little ragmuffin dog to ease her pain. That is until the dog falls in a hole in the floorboard and disappears. At once bleakly dramatic and blackly funny this section of the film is the most tightly wound, metaphorical and somewhat perverse. At night they hear the dog whining under the floorboards and the only way they can get to him is to tear up the floor. And so goes their relationship.
The third episode titled ‘El Chivo and Maru’ is about a ragged old homeless ex Marxist hitman (played by Emilio Echevarria one of Mexico’s legendary actors) who is hired for one last job. In the middle of planning the murder -- with his seven dogs in tow -- he encounters the auto accident and it changes his life forever. The last episode is the most satisfying of the bunch because it puts a life affirming emotional and intellectual closure on the film and ties the whole film together around its redemption theme.
Each section of the film is shot using different film stocks. The first section has a high contrast kinetic look (done by a film process called bleach bypass) and utilizes a lot of close-ups and hard fast edits. The middle section is not unlike a television show and uses a lot of low angle shots looking up from the floorboard. The third section is shot in muted tones also with a high contrast but with slower editing.
A note of warning: if you’re an animal lover (particularly dogs) then this film isn’t for you. So bloody and feral are the dog fighting scenes that the film actually has a disclaimer BEFORE the film. The dogs play an important role and in some ways the whole film can be seen in the context of story about dogs rather than people.
Amores Perros is almost two and a half-hours long but it maintains interest because it never slows down. Plus, due to it’s tightly but involving structure, its solid acting and particularly from the way it is shot and edited it flies by quickly. Some critics such as Kenneth Turan have claimed that the movie is no more than the "Emperor’s new clothes" and that he was bored by it. (Click here for that article)
True, the film has a derivative narrative structure similar to Pulp Fiction (which itself was derivative of a French film noir film Le Douous) but the film has such a gritty hyper-realism that it’s hard to deny or shake-off in such a manner. The only thing I can say about such criticism as Turan's is that he is just tired of movies because Amorees Perros is a good solid film that makes no claims to being original.
- Matt Langdon
