Amores Perros (Love's a Bitch)

Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu (2000)

Amores Perros was an instant indy classic, and gained international acclaim with a strong showing at Cannes in 2000. Its 2001 international release put Mexican filmaker, Alejandro Innaritu Gonzalez, on the map and led to his 'bigger' budget follow ups, 21 grams and Babel, for which he won best director honors at Cannes in 2006.

Amores Perros is told in 3 episodes centered around 3 central charactes, and more importantly, their dogs. Though the dogs are merely there to add symbolic impact and perspective, which they do extremely well, some have joked that the lead canine character steals the show. But the film has little to do with dogs and everything to do with people.

The brilliance of the episodic plot is a juxtaposed timeline, something like Torrentino made famous in Pulp Fiction, but with a much more unique angle than many have attempted since. The intermingled episodes segue and collide into each other at the most unexpected moments, adding a great deal of impact to the film.

The film's classic status, however, is probably sealed by the way its 3 main characters cut across all lines of modern Mexican society, and in some way, all societies. From the streetwise kid in the ghetto who enters his unbeatable canine in the underground dog fight circuit, to the high class Mexican model, whose poodle follows her through a tragic car accident, to the former Zapatista rebel turned assassin, who lives in the slums with a pack of dogs and excecutes hits on members of Mexico City's elite class.

Like all good epic stories of this kind, the characters form a connection between the archtypes in the cultures they represent and universal archtypes we can all identify with. In the end, however, it is the lead canine character who steals the show with his determination and bravado. The dog takes on a life of its own throughout the film and remains 'the last one standing' so to speak, as he walks off into the sunset with the hitman who befriends him in the end...