Amores Perros ***** (2000, Gael García Bernal, Emilio Echevarría, Goya Toledo) – Classic Film Review 715

Debut director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s dazzling 2000 Mexican psychological drama film Amores Perros intertwines three stories connected by a car crash in Mexico City.

The deservedly, hugely acclaimed, Oscar-nominated 2000 thriller film Amores Perros tells the stories of three men struggling to survive, whose lives become inextricably linked by two dogs and a car crash in the heart of a violent and turbulent Mexico City.

Producer-director Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s controversial, long (154 minutes) and gruelling Mexican film is cleverly constructed, dazzlingly handled and engrossing throughout.

Amores Perros is written by Guillermo Arriaga, based on a story by both him and Iñárritu. It is the first film in Iñárritu’s so-called Trilogy of Death, followed by 21 Grams and Babel. It features an ensemble cast of Gael García Bernal, Emilio Echevarría, Goya Toledo, Álvaro Guerrero, Vanessa Bauche, Jorge Salinas, Adriana Barraza, and Humberto Busto. 

Gael Garcîa Bernal stars as Octavio, an aimless young loser with an obsessive crush on his sister-in-law, Susana (Vanessa Bauche), who is married to an abusive hoodlum. Daniel (Alvaro Guerrero), a successful TV editor, has abandoned his wife and children to live in a dream apartment with Valeria (Goya Toledo), a shallow and neurotic model.

Meanwhile, El Chivo (Emilio Echeverrîa), a bitter ex-con turned assassin, haunts the life of a pretty young girl with whom he has a secret relationship, and receives a contract to kill a rich, philandering businessman.

Written by Guillermo Arriaga, this is bracing stuff. It may not have won the 2001 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for Mexico, but it did win the 2002 Bafta award for Best Film not in the English Language; also the Critics Week Grand Prize and the Young Critics Award for Best Feature at Cannes and the New Director’s Award at Edinburgh.

It was controversial because it depicts dogfights, but the dogs were apparently just playing. Their muzzles were covered with fine fishing line so they were unable to bite each other and careful editing makes it look a lot more vicious than it really was.

The literal translation of the title is ‘Dogs Many Loves’. ‘Amores’ is translated from Spanish as ‘many loves’ or figuratively as ‘goodness’ or ‘sweetness’. ‘Perros’ means ‘dogs’ but also ‘wretchedness’ or ‘misery’. Together it translates as something like ‘that which is good and desirable in life’ and ‘that which is miserable’.

Iñârrîtu went on to make 21 Grams, Babel and Biutiful.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 715 derekwinnert.com