Amores Perros

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu displays an impressive range of moods in his feature debut, which follows a trio of narrative threads revolving around the brutal underground world of dog fighting and a horrific Mexico City car crash that sends the participants' lives spiraling in different directions. Specifically, we track: 1) a young man (Gael García Bernal) who fights his family dog to raise money to run away with his abused sister-in-law; 2) a beautiful model (Goya Toledo) who is disfigured in the accident; and 3) a homeless ex-revolutionary (Emilio Echevarría) who is a witness. Shot in sharply colorful, digi-gritty digital video and so nimbly edited that even when a character disappears for 20 minutes the audience never loses track of him, Amores Perros successfully navigates without a slip these interlocking stories that are moving and disturbing, and feature overlapping and intersecting ruminations on coincidence, consequence, fate, love and seizing opportunity in whatever form it comes knocking. (Warning to the squeamish: the dog fighting scenes are quite violent.) Highly recommended. (R. Blackwelder)