Cinema World Tour, Film #26
Country: Mexico
By watching Amores Perros, Inárritu's debut film, I finally completed his filmography. Until his radical change of style after Biutiful, I didn't like his way of telling stories too much. 21 Grams and Babel were in fact just copies of the concept used in Amores Perros, the "everything is connected"-stories just didn't work for me, the visuals rather unappealing.
But this first one, which he didn't only direct but also edited, is after the masterpieces Birdman and The Revenant his best film so far. You can clearly tell that Inárritu had a vision here, that he wanted to say something with meaning. It's not just a random story of some strangers, like in 21 Grams. These stories connected here do have meaning. Take for example the social commentary in Octavio's story. Take the ending of the „job“ in El Chivo's story.
Amores Perros is raw, brutal, honest: a tale of three stories which influence each other once, but not anymore after that - like in real life. It's an impressive character study, about the characters expectations and hopes, and how they act if these don't get fulfilled.
It's a thrilling (1. part about the dogfights), suspenseful (surprisingly the 2. part about the model) and thought-provoking (surprisingly the 3. part about the hitman) film, edited together with excellence and talent by the director himself. That shows once more that he knew exactly what he wanted to show, that Inárritu broke through with this because he had a vision. Not only for Inárritu was this film a game-changer, so was it for cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, who masterfully used here the „waiting camera“ - probably for the first time to that extend.
After all, Amores Perros is probably the best Mexican film out there - yes, better than Pan, Roma and Y tu Mama tambien. It remains a super-realistic and unique achievement that Inárritu tried to copy for the next 10 years - before becoming a true master by finding his own real signature when he made Birdman. While his later films are mature artworks on high quality level, Amores Perros remains an experimental debut, a sensation like Brazil's City of God. It's expressive, wild, visionary and enthralling.
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