Amores Perros - Review (2000)

Amores Perros

Language - Spanish

Genre - Drama, Thriller
**ing - Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal and Goya Toledo
Release - 2000

---

Amores Perros is the first movie from director Alejandro González Iñárritu's acclaimed trilogy of Death. It was followed by 21 Grams and Babel. Despite lacking the Hollywood star-power of it's successors, Amores Perros has an immense appeal due to it's raw emotional intensity and an immersive and unique narrative of multiple story-lines with an overlapping theme reminiscent of Pulp Fiction and Magnolia. The movie vowed audiences in the festival circuit and most notably was nominated for a Academy Award in the Best Foreign Film category and won a BAFTA in the same category. It was also featured in Empire Magazine's 2008 list of 500 greatest movies of all time. 

The literal translation of Amores Perros is 'Love's a Bitch', an interesting play of words as canines form an integral part of each storyline, intersecting at a car crash caused by a young punk Octavio trying to escape a group of chasing thugs with his friend, and prized wounded dog Cofi. Cofi is Octavio's ticket to a new beginning with his beloved sister-in-law Susana abused by her thug of an husband Ramiro. The second act of the movie is arguably the weakest. It chronicles the relationship between a middle-aged business man and a young model, as they try to grapple with the aftermath of the accident.

The movie regains it's intensity with it's third and final act, the story of a homeless bearded assassin for hire El Chivo, who had left his family to join the revolution and now longing to re-unite with his daughter, who's not even aware of his existence. 

Amores Perros is a meditation on love that transcends Mexico's social strata and captures the varied elements of the emotion. But this is no Love Actually. It's brutal, graphic, intense and filled with immensely poignant moments and will stay with you long after the end credits have rolled. 

---