Amores Perros

Amores Perros

Mexico’s Amores Perros was an Oscar nominee this year and has gained a following on the Internet, where foreign films usually don’t excite the fanboys. The setting is three stories that wrap around through the social classes in Mexico City, from rich TV people to the working class to the homeless, and they go about it with a nod to Quentin Tarantino, whose Pulp Fiction has magnetic appeal for young filmmakers everywhere.

Many are called but few are chosen: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu makes his feature debut by taking what he can use and being himself an original director of dynamism.

The title means “Love’s a Bitch” in English slang, and all three of his stories involve dogs who become as important as human characters. The film begins with a disclaimer assuring us that no animals were harmed in the making of the film; this notice usually appears at the end of movies, but putting it first in Amores Perros was wise because there is a dogfight sequence right off the bat and all three will be hard on animal lovers.

“Octavio and Susana,” which is shown here without any opening credits, starts with cars hurtling through city streets while shots are fired between them. The images are so quick and confused that at first we don’t realize the bleeding body in back belongs to a dog this is Cofi, Octavio’s (Gael Garcia Bernal) beloved fighting animal and we don’t know why he’s running away. We learn later that Cofi killed some kind of champion dog before being shot himself; now he’s racing through town while being pursued by Octavio, Ramiro (Marco Perez) and their armed rivals until finally crashing into an ambulance trapped in traffic at which point we recognize one of those guys from another story.

In “Daniel and Valeria,” a television producer (Alvaro Guerrero) has abandoned his family to live with a beautiful young model and actress (Goya Toledo). He has rented her a big new apartment; Valeria’s image smiles in from a billboard visible through the window. But then their happiness is marred when Valeria’s little dog chases a ball into a hole in the floor, disappears under the floorboards and won’t come back is it lost, trapped or scared? “There are thousands of rats down there!” she wails to Daniel.

We learn that Valeria was involved in the ambulance crash, which began the movie; we see it again from a different angle. This time we also see that it involves Ramiro and Susana. And of course this time we notice more about the crash because one of those people is in front of us now with blood all over them while waiting for treatment Valeria’s leg is severely injured, so they take her into the hospital first; but while they’re putting her on a gurney, Cofi gets out of the car and runs away again this time toward home. As he crosses an intersection, he causes another accident and dies. Meanwhile Valeria loses her leg below the knee due to medical incompetence and later attempts suicide.

Periodically during the first two parts, there’s been a homeless man, bearded and weathered, accompanied by his pack of dogs. The third part, “El Chivo and Maru,” stars Mexican actor Emilio Echevarria as a reformed revolutionary turned squatter who supports himself by killing for hire. El Chivo is approached by a man who wants his partner killed, and adds his own sadistic twist to the scheme. The three stories are intertwined; most intriguingly perhaps, El Chivo has rescued the wounded dog Cofi and now cares for it.

At 154 minutes “Amores Perros” is densely plotted too densely for some tastes and richly peopled and atmospheric. It is the work of a born filmmaker; one can feel Gonzalez Inarritu’s passion as he wallows in melodrama, coincidence, sensation and violence. His characters are not the flat amoral totems of so much modern Hollywood violence but people with feelings and motives: They want love, money, revenge. They don’t just love their dogs but depend on them desperately. And it’s clear that the lower classes are better at survival than are rich people whose confidence comes from their belongings rather than their character.

The movie made me think not only of Bunuel but also of two other filmmakers associated with Mexico: Arturo Ripstein and Alejandro Jodorowsky. Like them it’s comfortable in the lower depths of society; like them it concerns itself with what happens when jealousy isn’t given breathing space. Think of Jodorowsky’s great “Santa Sangre” (1990), where a cult of women cut off their arms to honor a martyr. “Amores Perros” will be too much for some viewers (just as “Pulp Fiction” was too heavy for others or “Santa Sangre” certainly was) but it crackles with life.

Watch Amores Perros For Free On Gomovies.