Amores Perros (2000)
Amores perros (original title)

A horrific car accident connects three stories, each involving characters dealing with loss, regret, and life's harsh realities, all in the name of love.

Director:

Alejandro González Iñárritu

Writer:

Guillermo Arriaga

Stars:

Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal, Goya Toledo

Top 250 #182 | Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 55 wins & 15 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Emilio Echevarría	...	El Chivo
Gael García Bernal	...	Octavio (as Gael García)
Goya Toledo	...	Valeria
Álvaro Guerrero	...	Daniel
Vanessa Bauche	...	Susana
Jorge Salinas	...	Luis
Marco Pérez	...	Ramiro
Rodrigo Murray	...	Gustavo
Humberto Busto	...	Jorge
Gerardo Campbell	...	Mauricio
Rosa María Bianchi	...	Tía Luisa (Aunt Luisa)
Dunia Saldívar	...	Mama Susana (Susana's Mother)
Adriana Barraza	...	Mama Octavio (Octavio's Mother)
José Sefami	...	Leonardo
Lourdes Echevarría	...	Maru

Storyline

Three interconnected stories about the different strata of life in Mexico City all resolve with a fatal car accident. Octavio is trying to raise enough money to run away with his sister-in-law, and decides to enter his dog Cofi into the world of dogfighting. After a dogfight goes bad, Octavio flees in his car, running a red light and causing the accident. Daniel and Valeria's new-found bliss is prematurely ended when she loses her leg in the accident. El Chivo is a homeless man who cares for stray dogs and is there to witness the collision.

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Plot Keywords:

Car Accident | Dog | Mexico City | Money | Dogfight | 

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Taglines:

Love. Betrayal. Death.

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Genres:

Drama | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for violence/gore, language and sexuality

Details

Official Sites:

Filmax [es](Spainish)

Country:

Mexico

Language:

Spanish

Release Date:

16 June 2000 (Mexico)

Also Known As:

Amores Perros

Filming Locations:

Colonia Condesa, Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico

Box Office

Budget:

$2,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£80,560 (UK) (18 May 2001)

Gross:

$5,383,834 (USA) (6 July 2001)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Altavista Films, Zeta Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

154 min 115 min (TV)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Alejandro González Iñárritu:  He's a publicist working in the offices where the main character of the second episode works.

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Goofs

when El Chivo is pushing his cart through the streets prior to the crash, he is alternately wearing a grey t-shirt or a Fairisle-type sweater under his jacket.

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Quotes

El Chivo: [to his newfound dog, Blackie, after misbehaving] It's not right, asshole!

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Crazy Credits

To Luciano: Because we also are what we have lost. Special Thanks to: "Abba, Pater"

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Connections

References Pulp Fiction (1994)

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Soundtracks

"Pesada"
By F. Caballero and A. Hernández
Performed by Control Machete

User Reviews

Do dogs have personal characters? Or they just try to be loyal to their owners? What if they reflect our personalities by means of their loyalty?

Thanks to contributors, plot synopsis has been very well written. Amores Perros is included in the most important movies for the beginning of the 21st century. It marked a new epoch with its thoroughly life-like vision on a twist of fate. Then in a 5 years' of time within more recognized movies, we started seeing similar plot schemes telling different stories over accidents that binds each person's fate. One of them was Crash, and it won the best picture Oscar in 2005.

The more you see this film over and over again you'll get to a deeper point where the lives and choices of the characters won't matter any more. It's still affecting in the first-time watch, but with an ideational view the next time you see it; you're driven into a vision, a cast of mind.There were 3 main characters and 3 main stories from each one, which are nested altogether. If we look at these stories over the characters' relationships with their dogs, it's intriguing. As if the dogs exemplify their owners:

1' Young and unoccupied Octavio commits crime in order to earn money to make a living. He fights his dog Cofi in dog-fighting tournaments. How Cofi needs to fight for his life, so does need Octavio to commit crime for his life.

2' In the second story, beautiful model Valeria receives a surprise gift from her fiancé to choose a puppy from a pet store. By time, the puppy gets used to live a super-luxury pet life; which is the same life style of her owner. Valeria and her fiancé's apartment unit is under a hardwood flooring construction. One day while alone at home the puppy falls into a gap between the hardwood and the concrete; thus stays stuck there and began to squawk, since she is not used to live without comfort. At the same day her owner Valeria gets involved in a car accident while driving alone, having no one to help her just as happened to her puppy. She loses her leg in this accident and her luxury life comes to an end, as same as the life of her puppy. She begins complaining like her puppy squawking.

3' In the last story, the grim hit-man El Chivo saves the life of Octavio's dog Cofi, after Octavio gets killed in the traffic accident in which Valeria lost her leg. Saving him changes Cofi's life, he no longer needs to fight for Octavio's bets on dog-fighting. His life becomes safe and peaceful. El Chivo starts looking after Cofi beside his other dogs. Among the other dogs Cofi looks very ugly and dirty. One day when El Chivo leaves the dogs together at home, Cofi kills every one of them. His reason of killing all the dogs explains why his owner is a hit-man. As Cofi killed innocent dogs; El Chivo kills innocent people for El Chivo seeing himself ugly,dirty and strange among the people; like his dog feeling himself ugly,dirty and strange among the dogs. El Chivo feels bad about his dogs, when he finds out Cofi has killed them. Yet, he feels worse about himself when he actually realizes that Cofi's attitude gave him a lesson of life. Then El Chivo shaves, cuts his beard and hair, gets cleaned up and turns out looking like a gentleman. Cofi's attitude changes his life; his life becomes safe and peaceful just as when El Chivo saved Cofi's life.

The vision we're getting when we compare these 3 stories is about the public loneliness of an individual. The only person, who can guide and who can help us, is ourselves. This loneliness brings our freedom of choices. With making our own choices, we build the essence of our character: Our quintessences. Life is sum of all our choices. In order to build our quintessences; we always face the risk, fear and pressure of the chance of making a wrong choice. Life makes it obligatory to make choices. This obligatory builds our inner crisis and develops our personality. To find the secrets of our own personality, we try to find someone or something else to lay a burden on the responsibility of self-search. Here in Amores Perros, the 3 main characters are used by their self-search reflection on their dogs.

Doesn't this vision form the idea of Jean Paul Sartre's "Being and Nothingness"? Since Amores Perros hides the character views through the situations created by dogs; it is a movie that has no characters, but only situations. This is the systematic of Existentialism. If there was no situation or happening, there wouldn't have been any characters. Existence precedes essence. A person is nothing without his actions. So, a person doesn't have a soul(or a character) if he is not alive. Then there wasn't and won't be anything before and after our lives.

If we don't believe in this vision, certainly the signs of fate that we come across in our lives must be delusion.