Amores Perros

I first heard of Amores Perros from my friend Bentje, after seeing 21 Grams. As Bentje explained it, Amores Perros was director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s feature film debut, and it came highly recommended by her.

Amores Perros (which in English means "love’s a bitch") tells three parallel stories in Mexico City that are largely unrelated, but all of them cross paths when a car accident takes place. When I saw that the film revolved around a car accident, my mind immediately began to wonder if 21 Grams was an American remake of Amores Perros, because 21 Grams used the same dynamic—parallel stories revolving around a car accident. And only after viewing do the circumstances become clear: in 21 Grams, the car accident is what sends all the pertinent characters on their downward spiral; in Amores Perros, it's a intersection point for the various characters and their respective storylines, all meeting up very briefly with this car accident, and then going their separate ways again, though with some affected by the accident more than others.

The first story centers on Octavio, who lives with his mother, his brother Ramiro, and his sister-in-law Susana. Things are very clearly strained in that household, largely because they're a poor family just barely getting by, but also because Octavio is getting more and more desiring of Susana. Their relationship at first seems very close, very friendly, despite the verbally and physically abusing (and cheating) Ramiro, but as the story progresses, Octavio's obsession with her starts to come out. He asks her pointedly, "Come away with me!" Being that she's married to his brother and has already fathered one child to Ramiro, she understandably has reservations. It's really hard to tell where her preferences lie, though, because despite her marriage to Ramiro, she does begin to reciprocate some of Octavio's advances. (I may never look at a washing machine the same way again, I might add.)

While this is going on, Octavio discovers that their dog Cofi is very adept at fighting other dogs, and he takes him to a back-streets dog-fighting outfit, where Cofi starts to win big and Octavio makes lots of money. In the process, though, he incurs the wrath of one of the other fighters (because Cofi killed his dog much earlier, and not within the confines of the dog-fighting outfit). It eventually culminates in a disastrous showdown between their two dogs, with Cofi being shot, Octavio stabbing the other dog's owner to death, Octavio being chased down by the rival owner's crew, and finally leading to the film's focal point—the car accident.

Octavio and his friend are driving one car. When they barrel through an intersection, they crash into the car driven by Valeria, who's a very well-known supermodel. And thus we move into Valeria's story.

She’s just moved into a very luxurious apartment with Daniel, who's just left his wife and children to be with her. Quite by accident, a hole gets ripped into the floor, and Richie, Valeria's little dog, runs down into the hole. Richie was really her only companion after the accident, which has left her wheelchair-bound with a badly broken leg. Her eventual downward spiral, stemming from a combination of her loss of self from the immobility (and a possible belief that she's no longer beautiful but deformed) coupled with Richie's inability to emerge from the hole in the floor, and instead running around between floors with all the rats, begins to take its toll on her relationship with Daniel.

This storyline, I must admit, I found rather dull. Though I was personally captivated by the third storyline, of El Chivo, who now lives as a homeless man and part-time hitman (having once been a guerilla soldier many moons ago). Fragments of the first two storylines weave their way into the El Chivo story, showing the resolution of Octavio vs. Ramiro vs. Susana. But the third act very firmly belongs to El Chivo. At first we don't give him much thought, but then he sees a newspaper obituary, which seems to cut right into him, saying to us that it's someone very close to him who has died. We gradually come to understand that it's his former wife, and he begins to feel the pain of the life and daughter he left behind many years ago to become a guerilla. And his later scene, where he pours out his heart on his daughter's answering machine, is genuinely heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time.

I really enjoyed the gritty feel to these stories! Having never been to Mexico, I can't speak on the authenticity of the street-wise sense of life in Mexico City (though as a native, I have no doubts that Iñárritu nailed it). In many ways, I could also feel a Tarantino influence to the movie, what with the opening of the movie (Octavio and his friend frantically driving through the streets with a bleeding dog in the back seat recalled Mr. White from Reservoir Dogs driving around a gutshot Mr. Orange) and the three stories told back to back (recalling the three parallel yet intertwining stories of Pulp Fiction). In the end, though, I think it is only El Chivo who achieves redemption. He gives up the life of a hitman, leaves Mexico City with Cofi, while Octavio seems to go on with his life alone, without Susana. And Valeria, with all that happens to her, is slowly starting to accept her situation as it is. The scene where her perfume billboard is removed seems to give her much release, as it's no longer a reminder of what she was and can no longer be. (Though in that storyline, I would also liked to have seen a bit more resolution between Daniel and his family. We’re sort of left hanging with that one.) I would have to say that, after seeing Amores Perros, 21 Grams, and Babel, it becomes very clear that Iñárritu likes the multiple-storyline narrative, and thus, he’s honed it to a T.

As this was Iñárritu’s first film, I’ll give this an 8 out of 10. 21 Grams and Babel greatly illustrated his growth as a filmmaker, but with Amores Perros, we have a very genuine and very bold first movie.