Amores Perros

For my Spanish class, Advanced Conversation Through Film, we just watched Amores Perros, a complex film by Alejandro González Iñárritu interweaving three different stories connected with a major car crash.  It’s a bit gritty, with lots of blood and violence and no one really gets a happy ending.  But at the same time it was really interesting and a well made film, and it speaks to the hardships of life in Mexico City but really to the struggles of life that we all experience.  One of the main things I took away from it is that we are stuck not only with the choices and mistakes that we make, but also with the choices of everyone around us as they affect us.  Another interesting aspect is that all of the stories are also connected through the presence of dogs—all three main characters have close relationships with their dogs.  Perhaps this signals, as one person suggested, a theme of loyalty, or according to another, the interchangeability of human and beast and humanity’s underlying animalistic nature.  It also touches on different aspects of love and life, as well as the division between the upper and lower classes.  The trailer suggests that it is about all the things that love can be: betrayal, hope, sin, life, death.  A lot of different commentators have found different things to praise or critique in it, and there has been quite a bit of discussion around the film.  In any case, you should check it out!