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Amores Perros

Amores Perros

List Price: $14.98
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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Almost a masterpiece
Review: This film is essentially a collection of 3 stories, which intersect in a violent car crash. The first story is, for the most part, excellent. It is very exciting to watch and draws real emotion with a refreshingly little amount of fluff. The second story has less power than the first, but also has its moments. The fird story sells out, IMHO. While the moment of the old man's redemption is beautifully done, the rest of the story is somewhat contrived. All the stories are influenced by Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, but the third story more so than the other two. I enjoyed Tarantino's two pictures more because he sets the rules of his world at the start and sticks to them. These rules are only slightly different from those of "normal" life, and once you get used to the rules the characters and world become quite believable. In Amores the director sets his rules closer to the accepted reality, than did Tarantino. In the third story he goes outside his rules and as a result his world's authenticity suffers for it. This film could have been a masterpiece but, unfortunately, there are too many rough spots.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Mexico Unvarnished
Review: Any of those who would dismiss this movie for its allegedly senseless violence or because they feel it's a pale imitation of Pulp Fiction simply do not understand Mexican culture. Violence, verbal or physical, proliferates in Mexican culture; I think many of the reviewers (mostly overly sensitive gringos, I would gather) who are uncomfortable with this movie would probably be equally uncomfortable with the Mexican view of life inherited from the Spaniards--i.e., the fatalism, the grim resignation to the frequent ugliness and brutality of life, and a sort of crude vivacity. Pienso que estas personas que no les gusta México no tienen cojones. But then again, most people want illusion not reality at the movies, which brings up the next point.

As for the Pulp Fiction charge, this movie bears about as much relation to that movie as Picasso, in his early, rough stage, does to Andy Warhol's soup cans. In Amores Perros, the violence, and, hence, the feeling, is real; in Pulp Fiction, it's trendy posing. We cringe at the gore and we giggle at the jokes, then we forget the whole pop culture soufflé Tarantino has served up. The people in Amores Perros are blood and guts--crude, yes, and occassionally ugly, but there's no doubt they're the real thing. Quentin Tarantino has never delved this deeply.

I give this movie four stars instead of five because it's still at times subject to a youthful impetuousness that fits the first story beautifully but not the other two. It's not quite great, but it's still mighty impressive. And the middle story about the model losing her leg and enduring a romantic crisis with her lover is in the end rather tiresome--it's undeniably felt by the actors, but it seems like tawdry bourgeois angst or an episode from a melodramatic telenovela next to the urban blight and horrors of the first and third stories.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Veritable Willem de Kooning
Review: Sharp, impressive and GRITTY! No stone left unturned. Unabashedly raw and real.

Amores Perros depicts the intensity of human desires, and how impassioned we become in our pursuit of gratification: The choices ultimately made in life for better or worse. Every move the characters make is a risk, but a choice made with THEM at the helm. Their life out of control is really about their enacting choices and feeling empowered by their actions, and ultimately in control.

The film is at times gruesome, and admittedly, in tone -depressing. In fact, similarly characteristic of a Willem de Kooning work: violent, expressive, imbued w/passion. However, in scope the film is a refreshingly liberating experience, a celebration of man's free will. "Su libre albedrio." For that I laud "Amores Perros." The film in its rawness, like de Kooning, sets free our caged emotions and henceforth the human spirit.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: GREAT!!!
Review: I think amores perros is the best mexican movie in last 30 years, ths movie show the violence in the biggest world city, i think this movie is not "the mexican pulp fiction", because this violence is real we live with this violence when we open the newspapers, so this is not an invented violence, it is real; I suggest to see the movie "los olvidados" (Luis Buñuel) for understandt the violence in Mexico city, technical the movie is great, photographie, screenplay, actor, direction, et al, so i am say you have to see this movie

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Amores Perros
Review: Although the underlining plot of this movie is intriguing. The movie is extremely violent and uses language that is beyond inappropriate. I just don't see any reason to expose myself to something this cruel and had to leave before the movie was over.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A dinamic Treat!
Review: This film wont let your eyes go. Its movement, and an almost surreal sensibility, that juxtapose the contrast of its characters against settings that are most unexpected. Amazingly real at the same time.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the Best Films ...Period
Review: AMORES PERROS is unquestionably one of the best films ever made. Very powerful, gritty, haunting, and beautiful. The Redemption in the end left me crying for a good hour. I don't understand why folks call this film the Mexican PULP FICTION. I think AMORES PERROS is much superior to PULP FICTION...it has more depth (it's even as deep as any of Kieslowski's works such as RED). True that both of them are constructed in similar way but that's not new. Take a look at Kubrick's early masterpiece THE KILLING, which was made in late '50s. AMORES PERROS is very violent and bloody...very hard for dog lovers, like me, to sit through...blood is very vibrant and sizzling...but if you can't handle the violence, try a different movie which I think is absolutely brilliant and similar to AMORES PERROS but without the violence and blood - the title is WONDERLAND by Michael Winterbottom.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Magnificent portrait of life
Review: This movie had us tied to the screen for it's full length of three hours. I have never lived in Mexico, nor have I been exposed to too much real life violence. Yet I saw a picture of life and the intertwining of lives so cleverly wrought, and so emotionally strong that it only serves as an enormous showcase for the talent of the makers. Hats off. And I'm sure it was all done on a shoestring budget. Another reason why I don't see the connection with Pulp fiction. (What's the main one? Well, in this movie the violence served to paint a canvas - Pulp fiction was to me mostly "Let's make a cult movie" plastic).

The soundtrack was really really excellent, too.

Wonderful to be privileged to watch what talent such as exposed here can do.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Stunning!!!
Review: Amores perros is one of the greatest movies of all times in Mexican Cinema and, to be honest, of contemporary movie-making. It can not even compare to what Hollywood has released lately. I do agree, though, that to truly understand the reality that the movie portrays, you have to have a knowledge about Mexican urban life, slang, and culture. My highest praise for this movie!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: language, culture, and lifestyle
Review: This is a review in response for those who think this movie is good, but not that good. In a previos review it was mentioned that an actor in this film said the violence in the film was real violence and not glorified violence. the reviewer did not agree, but what the actor said is true. In order to fully understand this film one must have had to be submerged in urban mexican culture for a substantial amount of time. the actor that said the violence in this film is real violence is correct. the violence in this film is not an exageration of what it truly is. this film was great in the sense that it is a very accurate representation of certain aspects of everyday mexican urban life. I, having lived a mexican urban life for the majority of my life, know what it is like. it seems that finally a film has been released to the world that portrays urban mexico as it truly is. if you believe it is pulp fiction, then mexican urban life is pulp fiction, that is the way it is. another thing, if one does not understand verancular bulgar mexican spanish, one will not be able to capture the whole message and beauty of the movie. the translations (subtitles) are horrible, and not representative of the true meaning of the words spoken in the film.


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