Skip to main content

"Amores Perros" - movie review


“Amores Perros” or “Love is a Bitch” is a tireless 2 ½ hrs evocation of portent that will haunt you throughout the movie, and well beyond the closing credits. Movie begins with a car accident. With the knowledge of the accident, we are presented the preludes of all the people who find their lives tragically interlinked with the accident. Whether it is the teenager who fights his dog for money in a local betting house to lure his brother’s wife into eloping with him; whether it is the blue collar business man who pays a surly old fellow to kill his brother on account of cheating him in business; whether it is the magazine cover page designer who falls for the model and leaves his wife and children for her, only to be confronted with devastating experiences- movie silently sketches the outlines of a phantasmagoria, dipping the paintbrush (car accident) in three different stories, paints and transforms the hazy outlines of phantasmagoria into solid lines of a nightmarish hound-love.

Movie alludes to the desires and wantons; the teenager, blinded by his desire to run away with his brother’s wife, gets his brother beaten up, coerced and bullied by local thugs. His brother leaves the town with his pregnant wife and a kid, attempts to rob a bank and is killed in the process. teenager himslef is abandaned by his lover, brother's wife, after the accident. with his ribs and bones shattered, body bruised, his dog and money stolen, his best friend dead, he finds himeslf utterly devastated.

A man in his mid thirties is infatuated with a model, buys her a home and lives with her. But the accident throws their relationship asunder-the model loses a leg and the bereaved man hopelessly approaches his ex-wife for words of consolation.

Brothers and business partners are cuffed and presented a sermon by the man who one of them pays to kill the other. Ferocious dog fighting, love for a small puppy dog, and the man with seven dogs- it is not just the accident that brings these people together, but the dogs too. Dogs are gratuitous lovers, in dogs, these people find love. Hysterical and troubled men, ones that are deplorable, and the ones that are deprived of love- all of them, through the accident and the dogs come in contact with each other for once.

Strangers as they are, after the accident, the burly dog is rescued by the old thug; puppy dog becomes the only thing of joy for the new couple; if not for the dog, one of the brothers would have been dead- movie impales your conscience and leaves you with the scars of fatigue. By the end though, nothing changes, viewers will find themselves disturbed enough for a while. As haunting as “Requiem for a dream”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Entrenched Prejudices taking the form of Patriotism

What a great way to celebrate the Independence Day? I am bemused, apparently owing to the wide exposure of emotional experiences hitherto seemed innocuous. Delve a little deep into the acquaintance with idea "patriotism", one will invariably be granted with an uncalled inquisition, one gets to stare at a disconcerting vacuum. Why do we brand ourselves with nations that are a mere collection of geographically propelled, culturally augmented, self aggrandizing people? Answer is elusive to many for the reasons best known to them hitherto for their own good are turning skeptical now. Man whom the evolutionists assert shares a common ancestor with chimps and gibbons, naturally after parting his ways with his cousins (chimps, gibbons) choose to retain a comprehensive emotional, physiological and mental disposition. Man, if he ever chooses to embark on a space ship that supposedly travels back in time is bound to diminish his self esteem owing to his impromptu urge to track his ance...

Pressure Cooker

Daubing the top of wicks, one by one, with drops of kerosene, J proceeded to rest her newly bought Hawkins pressure cooker on the stove. “Now, you wait for the whistle” said the wealthy neighbouring lady who assisted J that morning with the cooker. With an assumed indifference, J waited for the whistle to lift its bottom over the lid and dance in merry. The kerosene stove, she was told won’t do justice to the cooker; she needed a proper gas stove with sleek finish and hollowed eyes that spewed blue flames with the turn of a switch. The kerosene stove with its twelve tongues brocaded over the epithelial layer of its throat, strung into a circle, served her family since the time of marriage. Her son squatted beside her, giggled and found it amusing as J rubbed his cheeks with her hands warmed before the many tongued stove. In the forlorn house under the wooden roof that leaked, between the pale brown walls that flaked, over the grey rugged tiles that cracked, mother and son lent their t...

The moth that covered my face!

My dog came prancing and dancing towards me, I started petting him almost impulsively, took his ears and rolled them over his head hither and thither, stroked his forehead, he was enjoying my attention blushingly perhaps, and he leant his head downwards and was swaying around to get the most of affection. And, suddenly he leapt forward with his hind legs brushing my knee cap, I looked over and he was merrily teasing a moth which apparently fell over on its back and was trying desperately to climb back into a more modest stand. Well, anatomically speaking, the moth had a curved back, smooth with shiny plate like outer skin that extended from front to rear forming quite an armour. It had tiny legs, it was just too hard to find out how many though, drawn so close to the body in a twisted tangled mess, it looked as if, the insect was bothering perhaps a little too much about its legs. On any other occasion, the moth would have leisurely entertained me with its physical theatrics, but this...