Inequality In Amores Perros

Amores Perros, is a movie directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, and it is composed of three stories that are intersected because of a car accident that involves the main characters, Octavio, Suzana and el Chivo. The three stories are divided into three parts, which are: Octavio and Susana, Daniel and Valeria, and El Chivo and Maru. Octavio and Susana is about Octavio is a young man who wants to escape from Mexico City with Susana, his brother’s wife. Octavio ends up using his dog Cofi in dog fights in order to get the money to leave. These dog fights eventually get him into a situation that causes him to crash another car. At the same time, a man named Daniel leaves his wife and his two children to go live with his girlfriend, Valeria, a

These themes are inequality, animal abuse, and violence. Inarritu explores these themes in order to give us a taste of what 21st century Mexico City is like, as well as to criticize it. In this film, one of the most recurrent themes is the theme of inequality. We can observe inequality in this film because the main characters of the story all come from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Even though the film takes place in Mexico City, we can see the inequality in the way that the characters live. Octavio lives in a working class neighborhood and the fact that he uses his dog as a way to make money, says a lot about his social class. Valeria is an European model who lives in an affluent area; and el Chivo is more of an outcast; living in a very poor and insecure part of town. We can also observe the theme violence all throughout this film. We see how violent Ramiro is towards his wife and his brother; and we also see violence when el Chivo has to murder people for money. For example, there’s a scene where he murders an important man in a restaurant, which is very graphic and gruesome. And, we also see violence every time there’s dog fighting. Alternatively, the special focus that unites this film is the concept of human cruelty. In this film we see topics of domestic abuse, infidelity, avarice, violence towards animals and other humans, which all represent that cruel aspect of humanity. In this film we see how each of these

Iñárritu uses a documentary style handheld camera and this gives us the impression of observing the characters as if we’re there. The camera was for the most part objective, making us observers by default. By making the film feel like a documentary, it also allows us feel how fast paced and real life in Mexico City is. The camera movements in this film tend to be aggressive and even messy at times, however it’s effective because in scenes where dog fights were happening, this type of movement reflects how rapid and chaotic the environment is, for example. The cinematography of this film was consistent throughout the whole film in the sense that we always felt like watching these three stories happen. I felt like an observer throughout the film because of the way it was shot; which was in a documentary style, and because of the camera movements, which were rapid. The framing and angles of this film also helped me feel like an observer because there were parts where, el Chivo, for example, would be isolated from his environment, and through the use of special lenses and zooms, we could feel that isolation as we observed him. The cinematographer of this film also succeeded at keeping this film visually interesting because it can evoke certain emotions when a scene is happening. For example, in the dog fighting scenes we can feel that hectic and tense feeling