Amores Perros is a Mexican film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. The movie is 153 minutes long and contains three different stories, which, at some point, link all characters briefly in the same exact car crash. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2000 and won the Ariel Award for Best Picture from the Mexican Academy of Film. It is dubbed by many as the 'Mexican Pulp Fiction'.
The first story is about Octavio who we find out has feelings for his sister in law who lives with him, his ill tempered brother and is mother. Octavio begins entering their dog into dog fights after it manages to kill one of the toughest dogs after being jumped by it on the streets. Octavio makes a lot of money and begs Susana, his brothers wife, to run away with him. His advances are ignored left and right. Octavio continues to win games. Most of them against the owner of the first dog his dog beat who continues to try and beat Octavio with new dogs but fails. In a private match however, he kills Octavios dog by shooting him. Before leaving, Octavio stabs him and gets into a high speed chase which ends up with him and his friend crashing into someones car.
The second story is about a man who works for a magazine who seems happily married with a wife and kids. The home continuously gets calls and whenever the wife answers the phone there is no one on the other end. Soon, we find out, that Daniel is having an affair. He eventually leaves his wife after spending a fortune on a new apartment to movie in with his mistress, Valeria, a very popular model whose ad stretches alongside a building that can be seen from their new apartment window.
The two are extremely happy.
Until Valeria gets into a car accident with Octavio and has to get surgery. Surgery goes fine and she goes home. One afternoon, while playing fetch in the apartment, her dog falls into a hole in the floor. She is worried for him, but Daniel thinks he will find his own way out. Valeria is stuck at home with nothing to do and gets restless. She also feels that Daniel doesn't care about her or the dog. Mysterious phone calls begin to be made to the house which makes her suspicious. The two are in a loveless relationship which ets even worse when Valeria must lose her leg to avoid gangrene. Her career as a model is over. And the ad alongside the building across the street gets taken down.
In the third story, El Chivo is a homeless man who cares for stray dogs and is a hit ma who wishes to visit the daughter he left behind years ago. He witnesses the collision and steals Octavios dog to take care of him. Back at his place, we find out that he has at least half a dozen dogs already which he loves and cares for. He leaves Octavios dog alone with them while going out on business and comes back to find all his others dogs slaughtered. Octavios dog has killed them all and El Chivo is greatly saddened by this. Throughout the film, he takes on a few jobs until he gets one which involves killing a mans brother/lover. He lets the two fight amongst themselves after tying them up in his dwelling. He sells a truck and walks out into the distance with Octavios dog, who he now calls blackie.
I think the movie is filled with themes from left and right. But the MAJOR theme is cruelty against one another. Octavio and his brother always get into physical conflicts. Daniel and Valeria HATE one another, and Daniel just ended his long relationship with his wife to be with her. El Chivo seems like a nice guy, but he kills people for a living. When he retrieved Octavios dog from the crash, he stole money from his dead friend instead of pulling either one of them out of the car. Blackie kills his fellow hounds. Not just one or two of them, but all of them.
The film also covers the hierarchy of the social class. Octavio is lower class, Daniel and Valeria are upper class and El Chivo is at the poverty level...he's homeless. All of them however, still showcase the same amount of cruelty and emotional distress. Each of them are 'broken'. And a car crash ties them together for a brief moment.
I think the movie was very good. 153 minutes was necessary to get everything across. this was the second time I have seen this movie and I didn't mind sitting through it. The only problem I had with it was the subtitles. From the title to the dialogue, Engish viewers are practically being lied to. But, alas, that is not the fault of Alejandro González Iñárritu. Who has delivered on an excellent film that concludes with a not so Hollywood ending and that is always a plus in my book.
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