Amores perros
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| Amores perros | |
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 Poster for Amores perros |
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| Directed by | Alejandro González Iñárritu |
| Produced by | Alejandro González Iñárritu |
| Written by | Guillermo Arriaga |
| Starring | Emilio Echevarría Gael García Bernal Goya Toledo Álvaro Guerrero Vanessa Bauche Jorge Salinas Adriana Barraza Gustavo Sánchez Parra |
| Music by | Gustavo Santaolalla Antonio Vega |
| Cinematography | Rodrigo Prieto |
| Editing by | Luis Carballar Alejandro González Iñárritu Fernando Pérez Unda |
| Distributed by | Nu Vision (Mexico) Lions Gate Films in world film magic Filmax International (Spain) |
| Release date(s) |  14 May 2000 (premiere at Cannes) 16 June 2000 30 March 2001 5 April 2001 18 May 2001 |
| Running time | 153 minutes |
| Country | Mexico |
| Language | Spanish |
| Budget | US $2,000,000[citation needed] |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Amores perros is a Mexican film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu in 2000. It is an anthology film containing three distinct stories which are connected by a car accident in Mexico City. Each of the three tales is also a reflection on the cruelty of humans toward animals and each other, showing how they may live dark or even hideous lives. Amores Perros was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2001 and won the Ariel Award for Best Picture from the Mexican Academy of Film.
The film was released under its Spanish title in the English-speaking world although it was sometimes translated as Love's a Bitch in marketing. In a 2001 interview on National Public Radio Iñárritu pointed out that an American English idiom, Love's a Bitch is not a satisfactory translation of the title.[citation needed] (Please see the section, On translating the title, amores perros, below).
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[edit] Plot
The film is constructed from three distinct stories linked by a car accident that brings the characters briefly together.
"Octavio and Susana" stars Gael García Bernal and Vanessa Bauche as the title characters. Susana is Octavio's sister-in-law, however Octavio is in love with her and doesn't like how his brother, Ramiro, treats her. Susana also has a potential relationship with Octavio and so he tries to persuade her to run away with him. Needing to make money so he and Susana can escape and start a life of their own, Octavio becomes involved in the business of dog-fighting until his dog Cofi (Coffee) is shot during a fight by the rival owner, whom Octavio then stabs. While being fired at by his pursuers Octavio finds himself in a car chase along with his lifelong friend and the wounded dog. In the crash the best friend dies and Octavio is badly injured.
"Daniel and Valeria" stars Álvaro Guerrero and Goya Toledo. Daniel is a successful magazine publisher who leaves his family to live with the Spanish supermodel Valeria. Unfortunately, Valeria is badly injured in the accident involving Octavio's car and therefore can no longer work as a model. Valeria's dog disappears under the floorboards in her and Daniel's apartment one day and stays there for days. This becomes a growing source of tension for the couple, causing numerous fights which leads to doubts about their relationship on both sides. Valeria reinjures her leg trying to help the dog resulting in severe internal bleeding which leads to gangrene. This forces the doctors to amputate, removing any chance she may have had at modeling. Once her leg is gone she realizes that her life is more than likely ruined since her sense of purpose, modeling, has been taken away from her.
"El Chivo and Maru" stars Emilio Echevarría and Lourdes Echevarría. The story concerns an ex-private school teacher who had become involved in guerrilla movements that led him to be jailed for 20 years, who appears in the film as a bedraggled, nearly invisible homeless man pushing a junk cart accompanied by a half-dozen mongrel dogs that he cares for. Though he lives in perpetual squalor he is in fact a professional hitman, El Chivo. At times throughout his story, Chivo tries to make contact with his daughter, Maru, whom he abandoned when she was a child and who believes he is dead.
Hired by a man to kill his business partner, Chivo learns that the intended victim is the client's half-brother; and though disgusted by this he is about to make the kill when the film's central car crash interrupts him. During the chaos at the crash scene, Chivo manages to steal Octavio's wounded dog and takes it home to nurture it. Sadly, while Chivo is away, the rescued dog goes on to kill all of the other dogs in the house, but Chivo forgives him. Still grieving for his beloved dogs, Chivo captures both his client and his client's brother, and leaves them chained to the wall with a gun between them and within the reach of both, their fate left undetermined. He then visits his daughter's empty house, leaves a message on her answering machine and a wad of money, and disappears again.
The movie begins with and revolves around the car crash which is the common event in all three stories. Octavio runs a light during a chase, hitting the car Valeria is driving. El Chivo is the first on the scene. This accident changes all three of the main characters' lives.
The film is a unique study of the common ties that bind the human experience of suffering together.
[edit] Production
The film was produced by Zeta Film and AltaVista Films. Production began on 12 April 1999.
[edit] Awards
The film won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film also won the top award at the 2001 edition of Fantasporto. The film also won the Prize of the Critic's Week at the Cannes Film Festival.
[edit] On translating the title, amores perros
Just as amores perros itself is a film triptych, so also does its name present three interrelated interpretations.
Among the few Spanish language lines found on the official amores perros website are these:
Si tu historia acabó bien, explícalo en el canal de "amores". Si acabó mal, explícalo en "perros"[1] (If your story turned out well, put it down to "amores." If bad, put it to "perros.")
To the author of these lines, amores is life's "goodness" or "sweetness" as in the Spanish aphorism, Hechos son amores, que no buenas razones. (Accomplishments are fine and beautiful, good excuses are neither.) And "perros" is wretchedness, as in, ¡Este perro de vida! (This wretched life!). Accordingly, with amores translating as that which is beautiful, pleasant and desirable in life, and perros that which is miserable and of bad luck, one true English language aphorism for "amores perros" is "Sometimes you hunt the bear, sometimes the bear hunts you!"
All the same, posters for the movie often pose the question, ¿Qué es el amor?[2] (What is love?), followed by the film title, "amores perros," as a play on an answer, "amor es perros," meaning "love is wretched" (love's a bitch). And surely "wretched" describes the human-to-human love-lives of the film's three protagonists: Octavio fears and loathes his own brother and is abandoned by Susana; Valeria participates in the betrayal of her lover's wife, and Chivo is permanently shunned by his own daughter. But each have strong and dependable emotional bonds with their various beloved dogs. In this sense the third interpretation of amores perros, "amor es perros" ii, can be understood as "love is dogs", a concept that anyone who ever knew a dog can instantly understand.
[edit] References
- ^ Amores perros
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1827970048/tt0245712 Amores perros posters at IMDB
[edit] See also
- Hyperlink cinema - the film style of using multiple inter-connected story lines.
[edit] External links
- Amores perros at the Internet Movie Database
- Amores perros at Allmovie
- Amores perros at Rotten Tomatoes
- Amores perros at Metacritic
- Amores perros at Box Office Mojo
| Awards | ||
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| Preceded by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon  Taiwan |
BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language 2001 |
Succeeded by Talk to Her  Spain |
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