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62 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rollercoaster, 15 April 2006
I rented this DVD to help with my Spanish studies, and because it was one of several I'd vaguely seen the name of in the media.
If I'd read the most recent reviews of it here, I probably wouldn't have watched it - and if I'd turned off in the first few minutes (as I felt like doing) because of the dog fighting, I'd have missed one of the best films I've seen in a long time.
I'm not going to break the story down for you - just to say that the negative reviews I've just read here have infuriated me into writing a note of my own. I love animals, I'm one of these idiots who ends up feeding the local strays every time I go on holiday - but not everyone does.
If you're looking for something pink and fluffy to watch, then don't watch this. It's gritty, highly moralistic but also a rollercoaster of love, lust, fear, heartbreak and adrenaline, with some fantastic, realistic characters thrown in for good measure. Try it... Next on my list are more by the same director.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you want to make God laugh..., 20 Nov 2005
...tell Him your plans"This phrase is uttered at an important stage of this superb film by one of the main female characters to her lover and this is the underlying theme linking together the three threads of the storyline of "Amores Perros". All of the main characters are driven off the straight and narrow path by love ,lust, jealousy and greed and their plans for the future are mocked as their lives become cursed by misfortune and tragedy. The fulcrum of the plot of "Amores Perros" ("Love is a Bitch" or perhaps "Love is Damned" depending on your translation) is a car crash which links together three separate stories. The first story is about an affair between one brother and his brother's wife set against the vicious background of fierce dog-fights, bank robberies and car chases, the second is about an ill-fated relationship between a supermodel and an adulterous magazine editor and the third is about a former guerilla turned vagrant/assassin who lives in solitude with his dogs , traumatised by his family break-up ,focusing all his love on the daughter who has been told he is dead. "Amores Perros" is similar in structure and atmosphere to films like "Pulp Fiction" , the "Three Colours" trilogy and "21 Grams". The cinematography and soundtrack is first rate as is the acting and characterisation. It is a very powerful, visceral film which grips the viewer throughout and I liked particularly its clever use of the "dog" symbolism , where the main characters took on the characteristics of their dogs and vice-versa. This symbolism was at its most exquisite in the second story when the model's fluffy lapdog gets trapped under the floorboards with rats, paralleling the fall from grace of its homewrecking owner. I also liked the disjointed structure of "Amores Perros" ,fluctuating around the pivotal car crash between the present, past and future ,slowly tying all the different strands of the film together. A really top quality film on all levels.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
so good, I bought it the next day, 21 Dec 2006
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 Gonzalez Inarritu, who followed this up with the equally critical lauded and fractured 21 Grams, this is a film in 3 acts, each act connected by a bone crunching car crash, the very start of the film. From here, by shifting backwards, forwards and sideways in time we get to see the events leading up to the car crash and the tragic fallout of the crash itself. In one car is Octavio, who has been entering his dog in the aforementioned fights in order to raise enough money so that he can run away and start a better life with his sister-in-law Susana. In the other car is Valeria and her pet pooch, a model who is fast becoming a superstar and has just moved into an apartment with her lover Daniel, who has left his wife for her. And one of the witnesses of the crash is El Chivo, a former professor turned revolutionary who is living on the streets with his pack of stray dogs following a lengthy jail term and hiring his services out as an assassin. All three of them are due to learn important lessons from their dogs.
Written by Guillerma Arraiga, who also wrote 21 Grams and the superb 3 Burials of Melquiades Estrada, this is the kind of film that Quentin Tarantino might have made Pulp Fiction into if he had been as interested in real people as he was in super-hip dialogue and interesting film-making techniques (and before you all get started, I am not saying that Pulp Fiction is a bad film). Every character, from the 3 leads to the plethora of supporting turns feels real, a flesh and blood human being with needs and fears, but of particular note must be Emilio Echevirria as El Chivo, a shaggy tramp with hidden depths and a lethal past, and Gael Garcia Benal as Octavio, the slum kid with big dreams, who is as compelling an actor as you are ever likely to see. Infused with an almost documentary style immediacy thanks to the hand held camera-work, Inarritu handles the non linear structure of the film with aplomb and verve, and can shift with ease from raw, on the streets violence to the hang-ups of the upper middle class. On the strength of this and his follow up 21 Grams he is a director to be embraced and cherished.
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