My 2nd Attempt to Watch Amores Perros. After 18 years.

Octavio and his dog, Cofi. (source)

I was ignorant. I'm bad with names. I just found out recently that Sirius Black was played by Gary Oldman. I knew Fight Club was directed by David Fincher, only in 2008. I watch 3rd Harry Poter film for 10 times or so. Fight club, for about 50 times. So yes, I watched Amores Perros when it released in the 2000s, but I failed to remember who was the Director of this brilliant and brutal movie. Not until I watched the best Nike ad (The 2010 FIFA World Cup). That was a fantastic ad with a great storytelling. A friend started to tweet about it, and then he mentions the name: Alejandro González Iñárritu.

In case you forgot how great the ad was:

I watched Babel, 21 Grams, and Birdman too. They're all great. Obviously. But Amores Perros left something deeper. The violence and low-life realism were crisp and the most important part; it teaches me how to curse in Spanish while maintaining cute face and cool attitude (Gael Garcia Bernal my lord!).

I remember how good was the movie, but I also don't remember how great it was. It took really long time for me to build the courage (and energy) to watch this movie for the 2nd time. The movie has 3 stories inside. All heavy. All interconnected. Sigh.

Here we go.

Wikipedia: The title is a pun in Spanish; the word "perros", which literally means "dogs", can also be used to refer to misery, so that it roughly means 'bad loves' with canine connotations. (Source)

The film starts with a chaotic car chase with a wounded dog inside. The use of narrow lens and handheld camera delivered the sense of panic and uncertainty. Then, bam! A car crash. This is the incident where the three stories interconnected with each other.

I remember Babel and 21 Grams where the stories were interconnected with a similar approach. I remember Pulp Fiction too. But this one is full of bloody violence and chaos. The dogfights scenes were too real, I hope no canines were injured during the filmmaking :(

After the car crash, we meet the first story, a lower class family living in a crowded small house. They have a dog, his name is Cofi. This is the first dog of the movie. There is a mom, she is cooking. There’s a baby. There’s Maria, and her husband, and her brother-in-law, Octavio. Oh, la la! There is something going on with the wife and the brother-in-law. I smell a good conflict. Octavio brought Cofi into a dogfight, to make money, to run away and make a better life with Maria. Of course, the plan doesn't go well. Instead, it makes their life worse.

The second story is about a family too, from the upper class. There's a man who in love with a famous model. He has abandoned his family to live with that beautiful young model. Turns out, the model was the victim of that car crash in the opening scene. Her life is ruined, she was badly injured. Her career is over. And her dog was lost under the floor of her new flat, though he can be heard scurrying inside.

The third story is about a lonely man called El Chivo, an ex-guerrilla vagabond turns to a Hitman. He lives with many dogs. He prefers to be accompanied by canines rather than human. He nurtured the injured Cofi from the car crash. El Chivo was prepared for his last mission, as he watched her estranged daughter from far away.

Watching the film for the 2nd times, I see that the Director and the screenwriter were trying to bring three genres into one film. It's risky but the result is brilliant! There was no single moment wasted. We move from the realism of the first story to the smooth but cold romance of the 2nd story, and then to the psychological thriller of the 3rd story. It was very effective. Storytelling at it best.

While the plot was looping back and forth (did I mention Pulp Fiction reference already?), this film was never loose grip on the realism basis. Everything seems so real and could happen right here, right now. I don't know, maybe it's because I live in lower class Jakarta, so the chaotic Mexico street Alejandro Innaritu tries to capture does make sense to me. Almost like a documentary, especially for the first story.

One of my main focus for this 2nd watching would be the characters. Damn! That is how you build a person on the screen. Everyone does matter. From Octavio to El Chivo, they have their own inner conflicts, feelings, and motivation. Even the minor characters such as the dog owners, or the dogfights arena owner, they all seem so real and believable. Everyone was in the grey area, there is no black and white in this full of violence world. It's all blur. And they're doing their own judgment. Everything is about money, love, and revenge.

When I saw this movie for the first time, I only saw how brutal it was. It was great. I could see the movie title throughout the film. It's there, in the movie's DNA. The story of the people who not only love their dogs but desperately depend on them.

When I saw it for the 2nd time, I see something else. Something deeper than it was. It's a story about different classes. We could see Octavio's journey was from the lower class society, Valeria's story from the upper class and El Chivo was the lowest class, he even doesn't have any companion other than his loyal dogs. The lowest class has the best survival spirit in this movie. He is the most independent one. He even saves the dog from the car accident. And the dog is saved, Cofi survive.

Speaking about how loyal El Chivo's dogs, well, Amores Perros is indeed a story about loyalty, strange love, a story about animal instinct that sleeps bellow our skins. I think the English title of this film: "Love's a bitch" is not a good equivalent for "Amores Perros". While "Love's A Bitch" could describe the strange love relation of Octavio and Maria, Daniel and Valeria, or El Chivo and Maru. But as I cited above; the word "perros", which literally means "dogs", can also be used to refer to misery, so that it roughly means 'bad loves' with canine connotations. Surely this movie is more than just about Love being a bitch.