Amores Perros/Love’s a Bitch

D: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu; with Emilio Echevarria, Gael Garcia Bernal, Goya Toledo, Alvaro Guerrero, Vanessa Bauche. (35mm, 154 min.)

The title of this Mexican import plays up the dual definition of bitch: the canine kind of bitch and the pain-in-the-ass kind, too. Dogs play a central role in Amores Perros, which is up for this year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Pup lovers beware, though: There is terrifying, unconscionable violence toward dogs throughout. The story centers on a car crash that sends three lives into simultaneous tailspins. (The film’s structure and time/space jumps recall Pulp Fiction and Run Lola Run.) The title suggests a sort of flippancy that doesn’t really exist here — sure, there are streaks of black humor, but mostly this is bleak, despairing stuff, all about betrayal and death and debt and gangrene. A devastating, twisted work, Amores Perros is marred only by a bloated running time and a bloodless conclusion. (Paramount, 3/16, 6pm)

This article appears in March 16 • 2001.

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A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Kimberley has written about film, books, and pop culture for The Austin Chronicle since 2000. She was named Editor of the Chronicle in 2016; she previously served as the paper’s Managing Editor, Screens Editor, Books Editor, and proofreader. Her work has been awarded by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for excellence in arts criticism, team reporting, and special section (Best of Austin). The Austin Alliance for Women...