Mexico | Drama | Crime | Thriller
Sometimes great cinema is not
always based on things that are easy to watch and digest. Ameros Perros is such
movie where the viewer will get to witness painful things and through that pain
come the art of realization. Maybe there is no other pleasant way to tell this
story without making it less effective. Whichever it is the final result is a
staggering piece of true cinema.
Amores Perros is directed by Alejandro
González Iñárritu, and is the first movie of the death trilogy followed by 21
Grams (2003) and Babel (2006). Though there is no relativity in plot between
these movies the sublime and underlying similarity in style of storytelling is
what binds them together. Here in Amores Perros there are 3 parallel story
lines that seem very different to each other on surface but speak of a common
theme all together. And at one point the characters of each story line overlaps
and meets ones another at a common symbolic incident. This incident is what
binds the stories together however not largely dependent on each other’s success.
This is one reason I called this point symbolic than crucial.
Story line one follows the most
painful to watch material. It’s about a young man from the city low class who
turns to fighting his dog in underground dog fights to earn money for his plans
to get away with his unconventional girlfriend. Here you may come across the ugly trade of dog
fights and the fate of dogs that goes in to them. For dog lovers this section
is nightmare. Story line two is about a super model who faces an unfortunate road
accident. The drama between her illegal partner and her struggle to survive
takes a very different mood and rhythm from the previous story. Yet she also
has a pet dog that keeps her company. The key character of storyline three is a
hit man. Beaten up by life and mistakes he did in the past he lives with a
bunch of dogs and almost homeless. However he struggles to put things right by
his daughter and for some reasons he is pushed away from his dreams.
As you may realize these three
storylines are far from being common. But they are beautifully connected by
dogs. The dog is a symbol of loyalty at each story and the people are symbols
of disloyalty and unfaithfulness. This combination works perfectly and Amores
Perros gives the viewer heavy breathing. Powerful performances, wonderful
cinematography and music ads spice on top of each other without making a single
story lines prominent over each other. It seems like the director has done a
perfect job in phasing out the sequences and laying out a perfect ending as
well. While I highly recommend this I would like to recommend 21 Grams and
Babel too if you have not seeing them already. They complete one of the most
satisfying trilogies of contemporary cinema.
Director : Alejandro González
Iñárritu
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