Amores Perros (2000)    

Alejandro González Iñárritu: 21 Grams, 32 Ounces, 2 Stones, 3 Bushels, 5 Piculs, A Scoop

Incredible. Mendes and Ozun (and anyone else above average) can all just sit down and shut up and kneel before your Aztec god. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, master storyteller. Tells you what’s going to happen and then goes back and retells it. Lots of films do this, but this is on the level of Greek tragedy (no, I’m not talking about the miserable lack of quality steroids at the 440 BC games). I’m talking about “You’re going to fuck your mother dude! How do you like them figs!” “Whatever, Ponch.” “Okay, I warned you. At least wear a condom.” (Heroditus snickering) And the thing is, in spite of this, you still care and are surprised by what happens partly because you refuse to believe the prophecy and partly because you just forgot what you saw earlier, which is fair. Inarritu makes you care about people with flaws, big flaws, people doing the worst things, and you still care.

The car driving scene is just frigging cool. I swear, and so do Mexicans, and it’s music to my ears. If you made an entire album with just “puta’ and a cheesy synthesizer track, I would buy it. Throw in a couple of “corazons” and a “chinga tu madre”, and we’re talking grammy. I think we would all swear this much if it sounded this good in our language. Brother “1” is the poster boy for skinny cool heroin style. There is a rose in Guadala-harlem, and he reminds me of Ewan McGregor in a cross between Trainspotting and a blue jean commercial. Brother “2” is a crazed Tim Duncan, a little bit, ah, smaller sized. The old Zapatista dog guy? I don’t know what was up with that guy. But still.

Some characters change. Others cannot. The dog becomes a fight dog and cannot change. That is his nature, and he is to be accepted for what he is, both loving, as well as capable of unleashing great damage. The dog is a character as important and complex as any other in the film. He serves as a mirror to help us understand the old man and his challenge. This last paragraph was boring for me too. Mexico City is not boring, obviously.

Contractions: When con is followed by the pronoun mí or ti to say “with me” or “with you,” the phrase is shorted to conmigo or contigo, respectively. Recent examples: Vende conmigo. (Come with me.) Vendré contigo. (I will come with you.) : Contractions

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