by neznakomka

Created on: January 30, 2009

Love in the film "Amores Perros" (in the official English translation "Love's a Bitch") is not saccharine and not bearing the sweet pinkness of the valentine hearts. The director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu doesn't spare us anything of his revelation, that whoever we love and whenever we love, something is being sacrificed and somebody is being hurt without mercy and humanity, with the violent determination of a dog fighting for survival.

The story is set in Mexico City and the plot develops on different levels of the society, stretching from the poor to the rich, from the adored to the neglected, from the lovely puppy to the furious beast.

Three story lines intersect in the single event of a car accident which determines the dramatic outcomes of the characters' decisions.

Octavio (Gael Garca Bernal) and Ramiro (Marco Prez) are two brothers who live in an area where crime is a part of the every-day life and the business with dog fighting is a way to get rich. Octavio is in love with his sister-in-law Susana (Vanessa Bauche), and is passionately planning to make money with his fighter-dog Cofi and run away with her. But his future will think it differently.

Daniel (lvaro Guerrero), a prosperous magazine publisher, abandons his family to live with Valeria, an admired supermodel - only to see himself alone and emotionally crushed in the costly and exhausting care of a physically and professionally disabled former celebrity who is desperately determined to save her puppy Richie from a horrible death.

El Chivo (Emilio Echevarra), a professional killer and a former guerilla, leads the life of homeless man and a caregiver of stray dogs. The maintenance of the "brotherly love" between the animals turns, however, into a bloody illusion after he welcomes and saves from death Octavio's dog Cofi.

Dogs are the constant presence throughout the film. They fight for life and love, survive to be loved, and take people who love them to the unforgiving point of self-destruction. Love is a bitch - it might be not humane and not moral, but it is tragically unavoidable, and this is what remains at the end: the man and the dog, walking toward their unseen destiny, having no choice but to accept each other.

"Amores Perros" is the first film of the director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, and is a winner of numerous awards from international film festivals. It also had an Academy Awards nomination for a Best Foreign Language Film in 2001. The film is an astonishing debut, successfully followed by "21 grams" (2003) and the masterpiece "Babel" (2006).

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