20 years ago, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s feature directorial debut, Amores Perros, exploded onto the cinematic scene, as a thrilling and energetic anthology film with three separate but intertwining stories set in Mexico City. It’s a film with a lot of layers, as hinted by its title – love is a overarching motif, but dogs play a significant role in each of the stories too. This is also the first of Iñárritu’s so called “Trilogy of Death” along with 21 Grams and Babel.
The film opens like a shot of adrenaline injected straight into your veins, with a frenetic car chase scene that later weaves together the threads from three different stories, almost Rashomon-style. Iñárritu is so talented and confident even as a first time director. The storytelling is not completely linear, and he plays with time in ways that, though not quite as abrupt as Tarantino in Pulp Fiction, creatively flesh out and build upon the other stories.
The first story, Octavio y Susanna, is the most brutal and visceral and passionate, filled with the hallmarks of youth. Gael García Bernal dazzles as a teenager in love with his brother’s wife, and who stumbles across dogfighting and gambling as he hopes to make money to fund his dreams. Reckless and cocksure, his tale spirals into one of betrayal, revenge, and danger. This entire gritty segment is filmed like an indie, often using a handheld shaky cam that accentuates the seediness of it all.
The second part, Daniel y Valeria, is much more mature and deals with adult themes and problems. Successful supermodel Valeria moves into an apartment with her boyfriend, unknown to the public. A tragedy occurs, and in dealing with the aftermath, depression, jealousy and helplessness set in, fraying the relationship between Valeria and Daniel. This is the most subtle, “internal” story, but it is bleak and resigned and somewhat cynical.
The final story, El Chivo y Maru, is the most intriguing and mysterious one. It is about a hobo who carries around a machete and is followed by a pack of canines, as he is dogged by his painful past with his daughter Maru. While Octavio is a great character, El Chivo is the one that really sticks in your mind. There are elements of Tarantino in the way it starts out – from the premise to the style, the action-flick score, and unpreditability and tension. Things eventually slow down a bit, but by dint of being the last storyline, it’s also satisfying to see explanations and resolutions to the other stories.
This is such an entertaining and dynamic film, with crisp writing and scintillating action and pacing – and great contrast between the three stories. Its runtime of 2 hrs 34 minutes zips by before you know it. There is such symbolism with each of the dogs too, and a really powerful message of how the cycle of violence extends far past what you anticipate at the beginning.
The beauty of anthology films like this is that it allows for such flexibility and range, and Iñárritu explores every inch of this he can. It is gritty, it’s soft, it’s electric, it’s cruel, it’s suprising. It is filled with the range of emotions from anguish to heartpounding thrills. Buckle your seatbelts – Amores Perros is a hell of a ride.
