Amores Perros Review
by Laura Clifford (lcliffor AT genuity DOT net)April 27th, 2001
AMORES PERROS (LIFE'S A BITCH)
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Charismatic Octavio (Gael Garcia Bernal) yearns to provide a better life for his sister-in-law Susana (Vanessa Bauch) than his abusive brother Ramiro (Marco Perez) so he begins to enter Ramiro's rottweiler Cofi in dogfights to earn their running away money. Magazine editor and family man Daniel surprises his lover, Spanish supermodel Valeria (Goya Toledo) (and her little dog Richie) with a new lovenest and news of his marital separation. El Chivo (Emilio Echevarria), a junk collecting ex-terrorist hitman, shadows the daughter who thinks he's dead waiting for the right moment to approach her. One tragic car crash at a Mexico City intersection provides a link among these three very different sets of people and their dogs in Mexico's Best Foreign Language Film nominee "Amores Perros" ("Life's a Bitch").
I'll be doggoned - this Mexican masterpiece is the feature film debut of both its director/producer Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga. The film begins with Octavio at the wheel and buddy Jorge (Humberto Busto) riding shotgun as they're chased through city streets by a truck wielding a gun toting crazy. In the back seat lies a dog bleeding profusely. Just as it seems they've lost the tailing vehicle - smash! The filmmakers have grabbed our attention.
Decent guy Octavio is tender and flirtatious with Susana and her baby by his older brother Ramiro. Ramiro is crude and cruel, denying Susana money for basics like diapers, although he'll present her with gifts that are stolen goods. Meanwhile, Jarocho (Gustavo Sanchez Parra) swaggers out of the local dog fighting establishment with his ten-time winner and decides to let the dog work out his bloodlust on some strays - here we first meet El Chivo, who brandishes a machete to protect his brood of dogs. Instead Jarocho sics his dog on Cifo, loose because Susana inadvertently let him out. Cifo wins the street fight, giving Octavio a moneymaker for his dreams of running away with Susana.
We're also given seemingly random glimpses of a middle class man with his wife and two daughters. This is Daniel, who will soon abandon that family for the woman splashed across the city on Enchant perfume billboards. But Valeria is the occupant of the car Octavio runs into and suffers disfiguring wounds. Finally at home in a wheelchair, one leg encased in a steel frame, Valeria loses her beloved Richie under the floorboards of her and Daniel's new apartment (I could quibble about holes left uncovered in the floor, but I won't). The relationship strains the longer the pitiful dog's whines are heard without his rescue.
Finally, the ever present El Chivo is given center stage. He's a witness to the fateful car crash and rescues the ignored Cifo, whom paramedics have placed on the street. Cifo will teach the dehumanized El Chivo a shattering lesson that El Chivo will pass along to his latest client - and his mark.
In each story of this mesmerizing film, a person will suffer the same fate as his pet. Octavio's as likeable as Cifo, yet when Cifo is trained as a killer, Octavio goes too far to win his sister-in-law. Valeria and lhasa apso Richie are pretty and pampered pets dealt a terrible hand by fate. El Chivo protects his brood of street strays while earning his living killing, until he meets up with a dog with the same past. While the dogs gain our sympathy more easily, the humanity of novelist Arriaga's script shines through.
"Amores Perros" is a paradox in that it recalls many films while maintainly a distinct uniqueness. Kieslowski's "Trois Couleurs" are evoked by characters interweaving among three stories. In particular, "Red" is noted in the panicky transport of an injured dog and a huge fashion ad with a red background fluttering to the ground as a car speeds by. El Chivo plays "Long Cool Woman in a Red Dress" before toying with his kidnap victim recalling Michael Madsen's far more violent scene in Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs." In keeping with the canine title references, the final shot brings to mind the post-apocalyptic world of 1975's sci-fi cult film "A Boy and His Dog."
The cast is uniformly good with Bernal's Octavio and Mexican icon Echevarria's El Chivo being the standouts. Bernal's mixture of trusting naivety and ruthless opportunism is given fire by the light shone into his otherworldly green eyes by cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto. Coated in grime, Echevarria projects a protective layer as tough as his overlong, yellowed nails, yet melts into paternal softness gazing at daughter Maru from afar or caring for an injured dog.
Director of Photography Prieto and Production Designer/Set Decorator Bridgitte Broch keep the film gritty looking in its first and third episodes, while delivering a slicker sheen for the more fashionable inhabitants of the second. Musical Supervisor Lynn Fainchtein delivers up a varied soundtrack that runs the gamut from the Hollies to something that sounds like techno mariachi. The film's animal trainer should also be noted for staging organized dog fights via the use of invisible muzzles which kept the dogs unharmed.
"Amores Perros" is simply a great film.
A+
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