Not Your Typical Date Movie

(The dog fight is on in scene from Amores Perros)

Amores Perros is three interwoven stories that add up to one extraordinary film. The first time I watched it, I was totally amazed by the sheer dramatic intensity of the relationships between the characters. They were at once extreme and yet highly believable. In the first segment, Gael Garcia Bernal is "Octavio," a young man who develops an obsession with his brother's battered wife. So relentless is his desire to claim her for his own that he plots to run away with her, tells lies to intrude upon intimate moments in attempts to seduce her himself, and hires thugs to beat his brother senseless.

In the second story of the film, "Daniel and Valeria," a successful magazine editor (Alvaro Guerrero) abandons his wife and family to begin his fantasy life with a beautiful model (Goya Toledo) only to watch the fantasy turn into a nightmare after an accident leaves the model maimed and bitter. The third tale, "El Chivo y Maru," shows us an estranged hit man (Emilio Echevvarria) who has a great passion for dogs but seemingly little for humans. Nevertheless, when hired by one step-brother to kill the other, he makes an unexpected choice that indicates he is not so damned that he is beyond redemption.

(continues below with part 2)

(The gifted Gael Garcia Bernal as a manic romantic in Amores Perros)

After watching Amores Perros for the second time, the three stories literally all came together with a huge bang. From the title of this engrossing masterwork, it's clear that director Gonzalez Inarritu recognizes love can sometimes be a torturous and soul-killing ordeal. Singer Julieta Venegas, in one of the bonus music videos on the DVD, put it this way: "Because your love's a bitch/ it's gonna kill me/ without having given me/ the least bit of happiness."

If this movie consisted of only the basic three interwoven storylines, it would still illustrate the director's point clearly enough. However, his cinematic artistry goes a lot further with canines providing a definitive metaphorical presence in each film segment. In one, a Rotweiler emerges as the hero who wins one dogfight after another to supply his master with the wealth needed to begin a new life. In another, an adored lap dog gets stuck under the boards of a floor and nearly drives its owners insane with its crying. And in the third, a lost soul of a man rescues a gun-shot dog from a horrible wreck and successfully nurses him back to life, but with some very disastrous consequences.

The relationships humans share with dogs in this film are often more loving and humane than those shared with other human beings. Although there are scenes of gruesome dog fights that make viewers cringe, we can forgive the animals because we understand their basic natures have been compromised by forced breeding and training to make them do what they do. What makes Amores Perros such a brilliantly unforgettable film--all 153 minutes of it-- is its unflinching condemnation of the abuses that people too often inflict upon each other and then blame on love without any sane reasons whatsoever.

by Author-Poet Aberjhani