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Amores Perros [2001]
from Optimum Home Entertainment
starring Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal, Goya Toledo, Álvaro Guerrero, Vanessa Bauche
directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Features:

• PAL

Editorial Review:

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's striking Amores Perros is the film Pulp Fiction might have been if Quentin Tarantino were as interested in people as movies. A car crash in Mexico City entwines three stories: in one car is Octavio, who has been entering his dog in fights to get enough money run off with his sister-in-law Susana; in the other car is Valeria, a supermodel who's just moved in with her lover Daniel, who has left his wife for her. As Valeria struggles to recover from her injuries her beloved dog is lost under the floor of the new apartment. Professor-turned-revolutionary El Chivo, who has been living as a derelict/assassin after a long prison sentence, rescues Octavio's injured dog from the crash. All three learn lessons about their lives from the dogs.

Amores Perros opens with chaos, as Octavio and a friend drive away from the latest dogfight with the injured canine on the back seat and enemies in hot pursuit, then hops back, forward and sideways in time. It's a risky device, delaying crucial plot information for over an hour, but the individual stories, which weave in and out of each other with true-life untidiness, are so gripping you'll be happy to go along with them before everything becomes clear. Inarritu is a real find, a distinctive and subtle voice who upends all your expectations of Mexican filmmaking by shifting confidently from raw, on-the-streets violent emotion to cool, upper-middle-class desperation. A uniformly impressive cast create a gallery of unforgettable characters, some with only brief snippet-like scenes, others--such as Emilio Echevarria as the shaggy tramp with hidden depths--by sheer presence.

On the DVD: The anamorphic presentation, augmented for 16:9 TV, is of a pristine print and shows off the imaginative cinematography (with non-removable yellow English sub-titles). The soundtrack is Dolby Digital 5.1 and there are 15-minutes' worth of additional scenes with commentary by Inarritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga (evidently the surviving trace of an entire feature commentary available on a Mexican DVD release), explaining why they were cut. With a behind-the-scenes featurette, a poster gallery, three related pop videos (two by Inarritu) and the trailer (and trailers for other Optimum releases) the special features offer a more than adequate addition to Amores Perros. --Kim Newman

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

• Interesting
  This well directed by Alejandro Iñarritu ( Babel , 21 grams ) and interesting Mexican movie tells three interconected stories about love survival and .... dogs.
  I feel that nearly every one of the stories could have made a film by itself so the end product tends to be a bit long.
  The movie portraits superbly the different social classes in Mexico , from the well off an wealthy to the homeless.
  The acting is very good and all the stories are interesting . the director commentaries... more info

• Lock up yor pets
  Liked City of God? Appreciate fine acting but not from big stars? A tripartite of stories linked by the unlikely glue of mexican dog fighting will impress the discerning film-goer. Dont take the dog fighting too seriously - its only a film.

• Stark depiction of modern Mexican society
  There are a lot of dogs in this movie. And there are some dog-fighting scenes that dog lovers may not want to see. Be forewared, a lot of dog blood is spilled.
  And why? Does director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has some kind of obsession with dogs? I don't know but according to something I read at IMDb there's a blurb at the beginning of the film stating that no animals were harmed in making the film. I played the DVD back, but I couldn't find the statement. I wonder. They sure looked harmed, and at... more info

• so good, I bought it the next day
  This is a film that is going to get at least a few peoples backs up before they have even allowed it to get going, as it treats something in a not unsympathetic manner that most people (this reviewer included) would regard as the very definition of cruelty to animals, namely organized dog fighting. However, give it a chance and you will rapidly find yourself drawn into the worlds of a series of interconnecting characters who's dogs have much to teach them about life and love.
  Directed by Alejandro... more info

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