Since Robert Rodriguez, Mexico has produced no greater film talent than Alejandro González Iñárritu, whose powerful debut film Amores perros has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Amores perros opens with a scene that at first glance could have come out of Tarantino's Reservoir dogs. A car speeds through the streets of Mexico City at top speed. Looking over his shoulder, the driver has a panicked discussion with the man in the back seat, who is holding a third, heavily bleeding figure. It turns out to be a large black dog. At the same time, the car is under fire from the occupants of a van. The car then crashes into another passenger car at full speed. Clinking glass, squeaking tires, a screaming female voice, panicked bystanders and bloodied bodies limp behind the wheel or with their heads on the dashboard. It's an impressive overture, thanks to the dynamic, restless filming, the raw realism and the bleeding dog in the back seat.
Over the course of the film, Iñárritu has the accident come back three more times, filmed from different angles. He uses it to tell three different stories: about the perpetrators of the accident, who are in the first car. About the woman who has the misfortune to be hit by a car and who is tricked by fate. And about a third person, an outsider who sees the accident happen and who does not own a car, but pushes a shopping cart through the streets of Mexico City. This set-up gives Iñárritu the opportunity to show a cross-section of Mexican society. Amores perros is a film about sappers trying to get to the top, about socially successful people who bring about their own downfall and about a bum who has lived long enough to regret a mistake from the past. Their dogs are the connecting link between the characters. They are the silent witnesses to the behavior of their owners, none of whom seem made for happiness and in the field of love and social contacts mainly excel in adultery and deceit. Amores perros is not a gloomy film, however. The film is too powerful and lively for that.
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Amores perros is structurally related to Pulp fiction, but in terms of content the film has more in common with mosaic films such as Magnolia and Wonderland. Unlike Tarantino, Iñárritu is not interested in postmodern irony. Like Paul Thomas Anderson, he means everything he films, in capitals and with exclamation marks. Amores perros is a compelling crime story about two brothers who cannot air or see each other. It is also an amusing black comedy (in light colors) about two successful people who lose control of their lives. And it's a gripping psychological thriller about a father who has lost everything. Main characters in one part are extras in the other two. Their lives sometimes touch (literally, with that hard blow from the car accident), but Iñárritu makes no forced efforts to bring them together.
The two-and-a-half-hour Amores perros naturally invites to several visits. The first and third parts in particular remain very strong. Also because Iñárritu's compassion for characters who find themselves on the fringes of society is felt most strongly. In the first part, entitled 'Octavio & Susana', he turns the longing for his sister-in-law Octavio (Gaël García Bernal) into an almost sympathetic anti-hero. In part three, 'El Chivo Y Maru', the old Chivo grows into a fragile symbol of hope. By comparison, the second part, Daniel & Valeria, is nothing more than a nice interlude: filmed more distantly, with perceptibly less sympathy for the leggy beauty who ends up in a wheelchair and the editor-in-chief who abandoned his family for her. Even wealthy people have their choice in the otherwise excellent screenplay by Guillermo Arriaga, yet their decline doesn't seem entirely believable.
As a whole, however, you can only admire the unbridled ambition of the 37-year-old director, who used to be a DJ in Mexico City's clubs. Amores perros is two-thirds stunning and that's enough. It leaves open the possibility that Alejandro González Iñárritu will get even better and that is a pleasant prospect.
Oene Kummer