Photos from Lions Gate Films Goya Toledo stars
in "Amores Perros." The film, which has drawn critical acclaim,
opens in select theaters nationwide Friday.
By Howard Ho
Daily Bruin contributor
Alejandro González Iñárritu is an unusual
director. For starters, he is from Mexico, a country with an almost
nonexistent film industry.
“I was born without Mexican cinema,”
Iñárritu said at a press junket in Century City.
Iñárritu, whose film “Amores Perros” opens
nationwide Friday, did not come from film school as did many of his
American counterparts. As a former musician, he wrote scores for
six films and was a disc jockey for WFM, a popular rock station in
Mexico. Consequently, Iñárritu sees his films as being
musical.
“My brain is more connected musically than with
images,” Iñárritu said.
Oddly, Iñárritu resists his musical background by
keeping most of the film free of music. In “Amores,” he
wanted the film to speak for itself, creating emotions and tensions
without the crutch of a sappy score.
“I hate films that have a lot of music,”
Iñárritu said. “When a director can’t get the
right emotion in a scene with images, he pushes it always with the
music. I hate that. The best films always have very little music.
That’s when cinema is cinema, like silent films.”
“Amores” combines three separate, but intertwined,
stories together through a grisly car accident in Mexico City. Each
of the stories is about the interaction of love and loyalty.
The first story is about two brothers (Gael GarcÃa Bernal
and Marco Peréz) vying for the same woman’s love ““
a woman who is married to their elder brother.
Emilio Echevarria stars in "Amores Perros," a
film about lives being inextricably entangled because of a car
accident in Mexico City. The film title’s translation,
“Love’s a Bitch,” carries a secondary meaning, as
dogs play a central role in each of the three stories.
“There were some devils,” said Bernal about his
training with the dogs for the film. “You couldn’t even
touch them.”
In fact, “Amores” was temporarily banned in England
due to its 18 seconds of explicit dogfighting scenes.
Iñárritu explained, however, that the dogs were not
fighting, but only pushing each other. Their mouths were closed
with camouflaged wires.
“With a hand-held camera and the sound design, you swear
that they are fighting,” Iñárritu said.
“That’s what’s cinematic about it. Nobody has
asked me if someone died in the car accident. Obviously
not.”
As the British response indicates, “Amores” is a
shocking experience. Dogfighting does occur in the Mexican
underground. Iñárritu visited two dogfights to research
for his film. But “Amores” is certainly not about
dogfighting.
“It’s only the context of one of the characters of
one of the stories,” Iñárritu said. “If
someone asked me to go see a dogfighting film, I would never go see
that film.”
Instead, Iñárritu focused for three years on
developing the stories that eventually became
“Amores.”
He played with the scenarios, connect them in different ways to
make them fluid rather than contrived. He went after the primitive
desires and experiences of all humans, sometimes coming off as
being Biblical, such as the “Cain and Abel”
archetype.
“It would be very interesting to see exactly the same film
being set in Moscow, New York, Argentina or Africa, because it
would work,” said Gael Garcia Bernal, who plays one of the
feuding brothers in “Amores Perros.” “People
would exist that way.”
After 36 initial drafts of “Amores,”
Iñárritu finally felt satisfied.
“It was like a soup that we began to put ingredients in
and explore,” Iñárritu said.
As critics have noted, the result is one of the most important
Mexican film in decades. “Amores” ran the festival
circuit, screening and winning prizes at Cannes, Edinburgh, Tokyo
and Moscow, among others. Iñárritu’s Academy Award
nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, the first given to a
Mexican film in a quarter century, was the final exclamation point,
reversing the notion that Mexican cinema died in the 1970s.
“I want to see stories in my language. Almost any cultural
manifestation was in English, either music or film,” Bernal
said. “I grew up watching subtitles. It’s hard to
relate to Mexican cinema because there’s no films.”
The time is ripe for Mexican film. Eight years ago, around the
signing of NAFTA, Mexican investors began investing in the
construction of Mexican movie theaters, Iñárritu
said.
Last year, Vicente Fox was elected president, ending 71 years of
single-party rule. Iñárritu and Bernal believe that
optimism in Mexico is high, and that Mexico’s film industry
is riding on it.
“Maybe we have the same problems. It’s not a magical
thing that everything changes,” Iñárritu said.
“But with a new attitude the democracy has changed. The
people are able to see themselves in the theater.”
“Amores” has played an active role in making changes
in Mexican cinema. Despite having a population of 100 million,
Mexico only produced seven films the same year that
“Amores” was done.
Since “Amores” out-grossed its competitors last year
while garnering international acclaim for its artistic bend,
Mexican filmmakers are being empowered. Over 30 Mexican films have
already been released in 2001 with at least 30 more slated for
production before the years end.
Though he has gotten offers from Hollywood as far back as a year
ago, Iñárritu refuses to sell out.
“To make a film is just an extension of a human
being,” Iñárritu said. “It’s hard to
think of me as a director-for-hire or a craftsman who makes good
things for the company, a two-hour commercial.”
Staying true to his roots, Iñárritu hopes to be a part
of the Mexican film renaissance.
“Mexico is an incredible country,”
Iñárritu said. “As an artist, it’s incredible
material to work with. You have to be in touch and feel the pulse
of life.”
FILM: “Amores Perros” opens in
select theaters nationwide Friday.