The director has said that his aim was to show the enormous contradictions of the city, the largest in the Americas. Maru is his estranged daughter, whom he left as a child, and whom he now seeks desperately to contact and establish a relationship with. El Chivo survives by carrying out contract killings on behalf of a former jailer. Terrorism led to a prison sentence, and now he is homeless, living in an abandoned building with a group of scruffy dogs he had adopted and dotes upon. The third tale is entitled “El Chivo y Maru.” El Chivo (Emilio Echevarria) is a former college professor who left his family years ago to become a left-wing guerrilla. She turns violently against her new lover. Valeria’s modeling career is finished, and her adored and pampered Lhasa apso becomes trapped under the floorboards of the apartment. The relationship turns sour almost immediately. Before they have settled in, however, Valeria is badly maimed in the same auto accident with which the film begins. Daniel has left his wife and young daughters for Valeria, and they have just ensconced themselves in an expensive high-rise apartment. The second story is “Daniel y Valeria,” the rather pathetic romance of a top fashion model (Goya Toledo) and an upper middle class magazine publisher (Alvaro Guerrero). This leads to bloody confrontation with local thugs, ending in tragedy. Seeking to get the cash to flee with Susana, Octavio enters his rottweiler Cofi into illegal dog-fighting competitions. Octavio tries to win the love of Susana (Vanessa Bauche), who is married to his shiftless and abusive brother Ramiro (Marco Perez). In this opening scene he is heading towards a horrific auto accident, the event that ties together the characters in the three segments of the movie.
#Amores perros awards driver#
The driver is Octavio (Gael Garcia Bernal), a working class youth who lives with his mother, brother and sister-in-law in a poor section of the city. The driver of the car and his passenger are screaming frantically at one another. The film begins with the scene of a dog bleeding to death in the back seat of a car as it speeds through the streets of the city. All of the protagonists share an obsessive attachment to their animals, and also strive desperately for human relationships that elude them and that end in tragedy or despair. The stories each deal with love and with dogs. The title is loosely translated as “Love’s a Bitch,” and the name has a double meaning.
#Amores perros awards movie#
The movie is organized as a triptych of three distinct but interlinked stories, in a similar fashion to Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic. The film has attracted attention for its depiction of life in contemporary Mexico City.
Amores Perros, a nominee for best foreign film at the US Academy Awards earlier this year, is the first feature for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, a 37-year-old Mexican director.