Ameros Perros

Archived Review
November, 2005

Ameros Perros
Iñárritu, 2000



Amores Perros is a movie about three different stories; one is about a young guy who gets involved with dog fighting for money and wants to take his brother’s girl away with him because he has fallen in love with her. Another is about a famous model who falls in love with a man, and thinks she has a perfect life until a cruel twist of fate ends her ‘perfect’ life as she knew it. The last story is about an old street man who makes money on the side with hit contracts. All he has in his life is sadness, regret and is his dogs. However, all these stories are intertwined by a single and devastating car accident. None of them know it, but each action they make ultimately changes what happens to a person in another story line.

This is Amores Perros’ key to success. I frankly felt the script was brilliantly written, and the stories all have such a genuine feel to them. Often times they are truly sad, other times shocking. It is fascinating to not only watch the individual story lines, which in and of themselves are remarkable, but it’s amazing to see how they connect with each other at various points on the time line. In addition to this, I thought all the actual characters, their motivations, dialogue ect was exceptionally well done. All in all the script was excellent, and is the central reason for the success of the film. I should mention that there were many scenes that were really, really sad, such as the ending and others which were dreadfully painful, such as the shockingly realistic car crash. Amores Perros had such a vibrant range of emotions and capabilities, and everything came together so perfectly to form an Oscar worthy script.

The other elements of Amores Perros take a back seat. The acting, direction, cinematography, editing, ect, all never make themselves overtly apparent. Instead, they let the story stand out first and foremost, and all these elements let themselves serve as a delivery for the story. Of course, that said all these things are still great. I loved the use of relatively unknown actors, who all did such an amazing job. The direction and cinematography perfectly captured the look of Mexico and the film, and the editing puts all the stories lines together and holds it all firmly together.

Amores Perros is in my opinion a modern masterpiece, and it is without a doubt not only one of the best films of the 00’s. The story and everything that supports it worked so well together, and the overall feeling I got from the film was so powerful. It is a very effecting film. I would defiantly recommend this to anyone who is looking for a movie that can really pull your strings, emotionally, and anyone who loved 21 Grams. As long as you can handle dog fighting, you should without a doubt see Amores Perros