Cinema Arts Festival Houston 2009

The award-winning filmmaking team of director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga began their fruitful series of collaborations with their 2000 film, Amores Perros. As in 21 Grams and Babel, Arriaga’s intricate narrative interweaves the lives of detached people, most unknown to each other, in the culturally rich background of modern Mexico City.
Octavio thrives in the “illegal economy” of dog-fighting, until his prize canine Cofi is wounded. While rushing to get aid with Susanna, the woman he loves and whom he is trying to rescue from a hurtful relationship with his own brother, he is involved in a horrific car crash. Also involved in the crash are Daniel and Valeria, two lovers who thrive on the other side of Mexico’s cultural divide, living the high life in an expensive apartment, away from undesirables such as Octavio. El Chivo (Emilio Echevarria), a former revolutionary turned assassin, witnesses the car accident and rescues Cofi, the dog. El Chivo was once among the economic elite, but now he lives on the street and, for a fee, wipes out businessmen like Daniel.
All the characters in the triptych are bound by their circumstances and linked by their love for dogs. Indeed, Amores Perros can be translated as “Love and Dogs”, although even that has a twisted meaning. In English, the most apt translation is “Love is a Bitch”, and that double-entendre in the title neatly interconnects both the mood and the condition of the many players in this complex tableau.
Amores Perros was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2001 Academy Awards, and won several Ariel Awards (the Mexican equivalent of the Oscars) that same year.