No one escapes or is made whole from his efforts. Octavio’s plans end in misfortune for all.
Octavio wants to use the money he wins from dogfighting to help his sister-in-law, Susana (Vanessa Bauche) escape her oppressive life as a poor mother married to Octavio’s abusive brother, a petty, incompetent criminal. The enterprise brings financial rewards for Octavio but tragic consequences for his owner, and for his rescuer. Octavio has trained his pet for illegal dogfighting, a sport at which Cofi excels. Octavio is played by Gael Garcia Bernal who has a brooding mouth, a broad, flaring nose and dark, fiery eyes.
He is perfectly understated in the beginning, and overcomes the maudlin aspects of some of the later scenes, vividly portraying a fallen man whose ghosts keep him from gaining redemption.Įl Cibo rescues the rottweiler, named Cofi, from the car of Octavio, a teenage boy. El Civo is played with subtle grandeur and pathos by Emilio Echevarria. Ultimately, his ferocity is returned in kind. The good deeds he sometimes performs do not make up for the evil seeds he plants in his own life and in the lives of others. His love for his dogs and for the daughter he abandoned years ago is tarnished by sinister impulses which keeps him rooted to a life of corruption and criminality. It becomes evident that his life on the streets is a disguise as much as it is an escape. El Chivo’s story becomes much more complicated as it unfolds.
AMORES PERROS REVIEW MOVIE
I winced during the early scenes because I feared he would turn out to be another movie caricature of a homeless man: one who despite being disheveled and uncommunicative possesses boundless wisdom, understanding, and kindness (I still cringe when I think of the dumfoundingly unrealistic homeless character in “Grand Canyon”). The story (the screenplay is written by Mexican novelist, Guillermo Arriaga) branches out from this tragic meeting point to tell the stories of the old man, the model and the teenage boy who owns the dog.Įl Chivo (The Goat) is the old man who roams the street adopting and caring for stray dogs. He sees the unresponsive teenagers and the woman who is screaming for help, but he bypasses them and rescues a wounded rottweiler who lies in the backseat of the boys’ car. A haggard grey-haired man of the streets comes upon the scene and examines the wreckage. Two teenage boys run a red light and collide with a car driven by a beautiful woman who, before the accident, made her living as a model. He brings it right to a boil, and keeps the heat turned up throughout. He throws everything into the stew, but he doesn’t let the story simmer. Inarritu doesn’t have the time for precision. His film had a rich, textural, almost surreal look. Bunuel, however, was precise and methodical. “Amores” reminded me of Luis Bunuel’s “Los Olvidados”, a great Mexican film made by a Spanish director. The holes are fewer and a lot less glaring than the ones in “Traffic”, maybe because “Amores Perros” achieves a kind of gritty realism without seeming to work so hard for it. There are a number of plot inconsistencies which are bound to occur when the palate is as big as Inarritu’s.
AMORES PERROS REVIEW HOW TO
Inarritu honed his film-making skills as a director of television commercials so he knows how to get a bang for his buck and do as much as he can in short scenes. “Amores Perros” moves fast for such a long film (2½ hours). They looked contrived, stereotypical, and molded to fit public sensibilities. Despite good acting, sharp-shooter editing, and a flashy look, the co-existing stories didn’t seem to gel. Steven Soderbergh tried this technique with “Traffic”. It looks in some ways like the films Robert Altman used to make about people who can’t connect with each other but whose lives unexpectedly intersect. Its circular, “what goes around comes around” progression is similar to, but much better than, the whirlwind plot of “ Pulp Fiction”.
From this center, the story moves forward and backward in time. Each story has its own unfortunate twist of fate, and all come together tragically in a devastatingly violent car accident which serves as the film’s focal point. The movie has its setting in modern-day Mexico City, and it tells three different love stories. It has opened to much acclaim in the United States, and was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film. “Amores Perros” is the debut feature film of Mexican director, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
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