Other Titles • Amores perros (2000) • Love's a Bitch
Synopses for Amores perros (2000)
1.
"Feels like the first classic of the new decade, with sequences that will probably make their way into history!" -Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times
Three lives become inextricably linked in the wake of a terrible car crash: a young punk stumbles into the sinister underground world of dog fighting; an injured supermodel's pooch disappears into the apartment's floorboards; and an ex-radical turned hit man rescues a gun-shot Rotweiler. Discover why Amores Perros is the best reviewed film of the year.
(30 votes)
2.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's striking Amores Perros is the film Pulp Fiction might have been if Quentin Tarantino were as interested in people as movies. A car crash in Mexico City entwines three stories: in one car is Octavio, who has been entering his dog in fights to get enough money run off with his sister-in-law Susana; in the other car is Valeria, a supermodel who's just moved in with her lover Daniel, who has left his wife for her. As Valeria struggles to recover from her injuries her beloved dog is lost under the floor of the new apartment. Professor-turned-revolutionary El Chivo, who has been living as a derelict/assassin after a long prison sentence, rescues Octavio's injured dog from the crash. All three learn lessons about their lives from the dogs.
Amores Perros opens with chaos, as Octavio and a friend drive away from the latest dogfight with the injured canine on the back seat and enemies in hot pursuit, then hops back, forward and sideways in time. It's a risky device, delaying crucial plot information for over an hour, but the individual stories, which weave in and out of each other with true-life untidiness, are so gripping you'll be happy to go along with them before everything becomes clear. Inarritu is a real find, a distinctive and subtle voice who upends all your expectations of Mexican filmmaking by shifting confidently from raw, on-the-streets violent emotion to cool, upper-middle-class desperation. A uniformly impressive cast create a gallery of unforgettable characters, some with only brief snippet-like scenes, others--such as Emilio Echevarria as the shaggy tramp with hidden depths--by sheer presence.
On the DVD: The anamorphic presentation, augmented for 16:9 TV, is of a pristine print and shows off the imaginative cinematography (with non-removable yellow English sub-titles). The soundtrack is Dolby Digital 5.1 and there are 15-minutes' worth of additional scenes with commentary by Inarritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga (evidently the surviving trace of an entire feature commentary available on a Mexican DVD release), explaining why they were cut. With a behind-the-scenes featurette, a poster gallery, three related pop videos (two by Inarritu) and the trailer (and trailers for other Optimum releases) the special features offer a more than adequate addition to Amores Perros. --Kim Newman
(29 votes)
3.
Amores Perros roughly translates to "Love's a bitch," and it's an apt summation of this remarkable film's exploration of passion, loss, and the fragility of our lives. In telling three stories connected by one traumatic incident, Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu uses an intricate screenplay by novelist Guillermo Arriaga to make three movies in close orbit, expressing the notion that we are defined by what we lose--from our loves to our family, our innocence, or even our lives. These interwoven tales--about a young man in love with his brother's pregnant wife, a perfume spokeswoman and her married lover, and a scruffy vagrant who sidelines as a paid killer--are united by a devastating car crash that provides the film's narrative nexus, and by the many dogs that the characters own or care for. There is graphic violence, prompting a disclaimer that controversial dog-fight scenes were harmless and carefully supervised, but what emerges from Amores Perros is a uniquely conceptual portrait of people whom we come to know through their relationship with dogs. The film is simultaneously bleak, cynical, insightful, and compassionate, with layers of meaning that are sure to reward multiple viewings. --Jeff Shannon
(27 votes)
4.
AMORES PERROS is a bold, intensely emotional, and ambitious story of lives that collide in a Mexico City car crash. Inventively structured as a triptych of overlapping and intersecting narratives, AMORES PERROS explores the lives of disparate characters who are catapulted into unforeseen dramatic situations instigated by the seemingly inconsequential destiny of a dog named Cofi.
In "Octavio and Susana," Cofi's teenage owner enters his dog into the brutal world of dog fighting to raise money for his elopement with his brother's young and appealing wife. Cofi's near-fatal injury prompts a reckless car chase that ends abruptly and violently. In "Daniel and Valeria," a middle-aged businessman discovers that dreams can become nightmares after he abandons his family to set up housekeeping with a beautiful young model who is tragically transformed by the crash. Finally, in "El Chivo and Maru," a revolutionary-turned-assassin witnesses the accident and finds that it leads him to an unexpected and life-altering moral epiphany.
A powerful and profound story of love, loss, retribution and redemption, AMORES PERROS raises provocative questions about the human condition at the same time that the film daringly recapitulates and reinvents different styles of Latin cinema. The result is a vivid and intricate mosaic of classic themes rendered in original -- and unforgettable ways.
Movie Database
In Theaters
