Dogfight club

>> Amores perros is a brilliant slice of Mexicana

by MATTHEW HAYS

Dogs figure prominently in Amores perros (which loosely translates as Love Is a Bitch), the Mexican Best Foreign Language Oscar nominee that was predictably eclipsed by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The canines wander through the film, easily as prominent as any of the human characters.

And the dogs work--as obviously as they do brutally--as symbols, effectively shadowing the plights of the film's (human) characters, who are brought to life by a uniformly exquisite cast. There's an aging communist guerrilla (Emilio Echevarria), looking to connect with his long lost daughter after decades of separation; a middle-aged businessman (Alvaro Guerrero), helping the model girlfriend (Goya Toledo) he just left his wife for to recover from a nasty car accident; and Octavio (Gael Garcia Bernal), a scruffy, desperate character who shags his brother's wife and makes some extra money with his pet canine Cofi, a mean fighting-machine who wins every dog fight he's entered into.

This first feature directed and produced by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga, is drawing comparisons to Tarantino's breakthrough film, Pulp Fiction. Clearly, the film's narrative structure invites such comparison: Amores perros has three principle narratives, winding around the aforementioned characters, all of which intertwine around one very nasty car accident.

But the comparisons to Pulp should end there. Where Tarantino punctuated his scenes with laughs, pop-culture-referential dialogue and self-conscious odes to old movies, Inarritu takes things one step further. Despite the director's music-video lineage, nothing about Amores feels superficial. Instead, the film is thoughtful, careful and full of integrity--moving well beyond a hand-held camera and some flashy editing. Brutal fight scenes and one of the most jarring (if brief) car chases I've ever witnessed coexist with thoughtful character studies and intricate plot turns. Just when it feels pegged to become a film bemoaning the trials of the poverty stricken, we're led into the lives of the rich and famous and find that no one's safe from tricks of fate. Perhaps best of all, Amores is often most harrowing when the threat of violence, rather than violence itself, actually hangs in the air.

If there is a criticism of Amores, it would be that the first narrative thread we're given, the plot involving Octavio, his fighting dog and passion for his sister-in-law, is so captivating that the following two plot lines almost pale in comparison.

But the film loops around, catching up, in various fleeting glimpses, with the characters each section has introduced us to. While partially rooted in Latino soap-opera traditions, Amores is refreshing in tying nothing up entirely by its final credits. It's an ambiguous ending, one full of gnawing mysteries--something that only adds to the brilliance of Amores perros.

Amores perros opens Friday, April 13