The flaws in Alejandro González Iñárritu's Amores perros underscore a major problem in cinema today: the need for complexity and grandeur-not emotional complexity (the only complexity that deserves credit), mind you, just any kind of complexity. The complexity that is most appreciated is plot complexity. A movie with a few characters about issues of every day life is considered an insignificant film by the media. A great film is big: lots of characters, important problems, dozens of interesting locations. How else can you explain why Pulp Fiction-an endlessly complex film in terms of storytelling, but an emotionally empty one-is so hugely popular? How can you explain why a film like Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is considered a more relevant commentary on the war in Iraq than Errol Morris's The Fog of War, a much more complex and thoughtful film about when to engage in war? The reason is that Fahrenheit is on such a large scale; look at the ads: 'From the corridors of power to the streets of small-town America to the front lines!'-it sounds big, it sounds important, or more important than an interview with an old ex-politician in one small room. Does this have any bearing on how provocative Fahrenheit is compared to The Fog of War? Of course not. Anyway, the reason that this affects Iñárritu is that he can't simply tell a story about the responsibility it takes to love someone. To make the film more important, he must chop up the plot structure and make it sloppily non-linear. He did the same thing with 21 Grams and it ruined what could've been a good movie. Iñárritu is a talented filmmaker, a humanist with good dramatic taste and some effective stories to tell. Why can't he trust his material? Amores perros would be closer to being great if it wasn't so afraid of being good. The time I had to take piecing together the confusingly nonlinear plot cut into my ability to appreciate the characters.
The film follows an old hit man (Emilio Echevarría) doing one last job, a young man (Gael García) who has fallen in love with his sadistic brother's wife, and a superstar (Goya Toledo) who lost her dog under the floorboards. All three stories are compelling and the major performances are all great-Emilio Echevarría and Gael García Bernal are particularly excellent-and the dreadfully melancholic score by Gustavo Santaolalla is compelling. Also, there is a car chase scene filmed with an intensity, stemming mainly from skilled sound mixing, that is not matched by any other car chase scene. I'd see the film for the raw materials, even if they were chopped up pretty badly.
The film follows an old hit man (Emilio Echevarría) doing one last job, a young man (Gael García) who has fallen in love with his sadistic brother's wife, and a superstar (Goya Toledo) who lost her dog under the floorboards. All three stories are compelling and the major performances are all great-Emilio Echevarría and Gael García Bernal are particularly excellent-and the dreadfully melancholic score by Gustavo Santaolalla is compelling. Also, there is a car chase scene filmed with an intensity, stemming mainly from skilled sound mixing, that is not matched by any other car chase scene. I'd see the film for the raw materials, even if they were chopped up pretty badly.