Emilio Echevarría as El Chivo
“To make God Laugh, tell him your plans”
The lives of three people in Mexico City become fatefully interlinked creating a patchwork of violence at all levels: A lad from the roughest part of town becomes an amateur dog-fighter to make money, a supermodel is seriously injured leaving her career in the balance and a homeless assassin finally questions his client’s intentions, as they all struggle to find love when their lives are transformed by one devastating car crash that has endless repercussions.
Gael García Bernal as Octavio
This version of AMORES PERROS was beautifully restored in 2020, for the Criterion Collection, with studio Mexico Films and Altavista Films, meticulously supervised by the director Alejandro González Iñárritu and his cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and it has been well worth the effort.
It is not often that a debut feature has such far-reaching effects both on the film industry (being considered one of the best representations of New Mexican Cinema) and on the country itself, as dog-fighting has been officially banned in Mexico since 2017.
Goya Toledo as Valeria, Álvaro Guerrero as Daniel with her dog Richie.
Now, on the 26th anniversary of its release, MUBI are launching ‘AMORES PERROS’ on their streaming service.
Right from the start, this impressive film swept the boards, winning 56 awards and 24 nominations including a nomination for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. It has been even been hailed as one of the best films of the 21st Century (so far) by Canadian filmmaker Denis Villenueve (Dune), having premiered at the Cannes Film Festival literally at the turn of the millennium in the year 2000 and garnered so many awards.
The idea for this psychological drama was conjured up by Guillermo Arriaga and Alejandro González Iñárritu working together. Then Alejandro G Iñárritu directed it, leaving the scriptwriting to his friend and colleague Alejandro Arriaga. These two creatives then went on to work together on two further films, creating the impressive ‘Trilogy of Death,’ with ‘21 GRAMS’ (2003) and ‘BABEL’ (2006).
Naomi Watts and Sean Penn in 21 GRAMS
The film is in three parts, using a complex multi-narrative hyperlink cinema style. The stories intercut and intermix creating an effective way to cover many themes and issues to full effect.
Kate Blanchett & Brad Pitt in BABEL
Iñárritu and Arriaga question how various forms of violence erupt in different social strata, revealing how masculinity is portrayed in Mexico, let alone the astonishing repercussions that can emanate from one single incident. Arriaga and Iñárritu have harnessed the Chaos Theory and the Butterfly Effect to describe how a seemingly finite event can, nevertheless, lead to massive, unpredictable and endless consequences, rippling out, some believe, forever.
Alejandro Iñárritu - the Director
This totally absorbing trilogy of movies can be watched over and over again, and the viewer will endlessly find something new every time.
Guillermo Arriaga the screenwriter.
In AMORES PERROS, the three tales interact seamlessly. Firstly, you have the broke Octavio (Gaël García Bernal), deeply in love with Susana who is married to his abusive brother. Determined to raise money so he can persuade her to run away with him, he enters his Rottweiler into dog fights where he makes a lot of money, largely from Jarocho (Gustavo Sánchez Parra), the local thug. In a private fight, Jarocho shoots Octavio’s Rottweiler because it is winning. Octavio stabs him in a rage and has to flee from the remaining thugs in a car with his friend Jorge and his badly injured dog. The mad car chase leads to the central and tragic car crash that starts everything off.
Secondly, magazine publisher Daniel (Álvaro Guerrero) has left his family to move in with his lover Valeria (Goya Toledo) a Spanish supermodel. In that car crash, her leg is severely injured. As she recuperates, her own dog Richie disappears, becoming trapped under some rat ridden broken floorboards. Her career lies in the balance.
Dog- Fight
Lastly, a professional hitman, El Chivo (Emilio Echevarría) lives like a homeless man with his pack of dogs. An ex- con and a previous professor, he left everything to fight with the guerrillas for what he thought could make a difference and spent years of his life in jail. His daughter has been told he is dead, which tears him apart.
Gustavo Sánchez Parra as Jarocho with his dog
El Chivo’s hit on a young businessman is interrupted by the fatal car crash. He takes the opportunity to save the injured Rottweiler, and steal Octavio’s money while later challenges the client and his proposed victim to sort out their own problems.
Gustavo Sánchez Parr as Jarocho with his dog.
The title in Spanish, ‘AMORES PERROS’ is also a play on words. ‘Perro’ can also be used to mean, as in English, something gone bad, like going to the dogs. You could also say that dogs are used as a symbol of masculinity, control and dominance, using cruelty and violence. As in the case of Octavio, who enters his faithful Rottweiler, Cofi, in dog fights, to make some serious money in his desperate attempt to appear strong and masculine so that Susana will run away with him.
The severe injuries Octavio’s dog receives in the fights, are also ways to indicate how cycles of violence do not end in salvation. In the case of Valeria, her dog Richie, lost under the floorboards, represents her own helplessness and lack of control over her own pitiful situation. The only one who really shows some empathy in the end, is the ruthless hitman, El Chivo, who questions his client’s reasons for hiring him, and ends up saving Octavio’s dog.
The sound track features some songs by various Latin American rock bands, including Café Tacuba, Control Machete. Illya Juryaki & the Valderramas-
Richie disappears under floorboards
In ‘AMORES PERROS’ violence is referenced at all levels, from domestic violence and hit men, to animal cruelty and fatal armed robberies, so it’s interesting and relevant, that the actual cast and crew were themselves attacked and robbed by street gangs while filming, so the script was closer to reality than even they had expected!
Iñárritu was harshly criticized for the dog-fighting scenes, but, as he pointed out, that at that time this cruel sport was part of a large underground economy in Mexico City. For those who are squeamish, it is important to know that despite the powerful realism of the dog fights, no animals were harmed during the filming. They were playing with fishing-line muzzles, so they could not bite one another, and those appearing to be dead or dying had been sedated.
Emilio Echevarria as El Chivo the hitman.
As these three stories overlap, they emphasize the tough class divisions in Mexico: El Chivo is homeless. Octavio comes from the most deprived area, while Valeria lives luxuriously in a high-rise apartment (albeit with dodgy floors!).
Were it not for the car crash, these people would never have interacted at all. True to Mexican lore, there is also an element of fatalism, and how people struggle, determined to overcome their situation, however final it may appear.
AMORES PERROS (2000) available on MUBI
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu
Producers: Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu/ Guillermo Arriaga/ Martha Sosa Elizondo/ Francisco Gonzalez Compeán/ DOP: Rodrigo Prieto/ Composer: Gustavo Santaolalla/ Editors: Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, Luis Carballar and fernando Perez Unda/ Supervising Sound Editor: Roland N Thai/ Sound Designer: Martín Hernández/ Sound: Antonio Diego / colourist: Juan Magaña.
CAST: Emilio Echevarria as El Chivo / Gabriel Garcia Bernal as Octavio / Goya Toledo as Valeria / Marco Pérez as Ramíro. Álvaro Guerrero as Daniel/ Vanessa Bauche as Susana / also with Jorge Salinas, Adriana Braza and Humberto Busto-
The film was dedicated: ‘To Luciano because we are also that which we have lost’
