I had a really hard time watching this one.

Amores Perros covers three different stories that revolve around a car accident on the streets of Mexico. The first story is Octavio’s, a lower-class guy who enrolls his brother’s dog into a dogfighting contest in order for him and his brother’s wife to run away and start a new life together. The second story centers on Valeria, a supermodel who’s got it all until the disappearance of her dog ruins her life. And then there’s El Chivo, a homeless assassin with a shepherd-like affection for dogs.

Dogs are a constant motif in this film, part of which makes it hard to watch. Anybody who’s picked up a screenwriter’s book knows that the easiest way to win over an audience’s heart is to have the main character “save the cat,” but Alejandro J. Iñárritu takes that concept to its breaking point that made this an especially hard watch for me. I can handle humans being violent to other humans, but seeing dogs tear each other to shreds had me hiding behind my hands.

But the dogfighting and the general nature of the dogs in this film warrant some investigating. Iñárritu’s skill in this film is using the interlocking storylines and the regular appearance of dogs as a way to mirror the violence people perpetuate on others and themselves throughout their lives. Whether it’s through abandonment, betrayal, callousness, or viciousness, when you strip away people’s moral ambiguity and have the dog be the narrative’s avatar, you find yourself questioning why the world we live in is constructed this way. You also start to find yourself questioning why you’re judging the characters so much.

This film was lauded for its depiction of lower-class street life in urban Mexico, and at every turn I could understand why the characters made the decisions they did. They do a lot of morally questionable and outright heinous actions, but considering it’s a literal dog-eat-dog world, it’s almost impossible for the characters to make hesitant choices. You’re either fully committed or not doing anything. Octavio’s character is the perfect representation of this. His brother is abusive to his wife Susana, and Octavio understandably wants to save the woman he loves from being hurt further. However, his own romantic entanglements with Susana make him a flawed narrator, since he is seeing himself as a hero in his own narrative, in a world that is not conducive to it.

Dogs are also a critical way of illustrating the sharp class divide in Mexico. For lower-class people, dogs are invaluable companions, but for the truly desperate, they can be a source of income. For the upper-class, especially supermodels like Valeria, dogs are accessories. They deserve to be treated with the utmost adoration and respect, and when they are gone, it’s like a piece of your heart is taken away. That doesn’t make the fact that the second act is weaker than the other two any different, but it’s a nice contrast to Octavio and El Chivo’s stories.

El Chivo acts as the perfect balance between Octavio and Valeria. Whereas Octavio sees his dog as a means to an end and Valeria sees hers as a precious accessory, El Chivo sees his band of dogs as a surrogate family. He resembles a shepherd guiding his sheep through the desert as he walks the streets of Mexico, adding a mythicism to a morally grey character that makes his act in the film one of the best parts of the film.

El Chivo’s mysterious past makes him both someone you wouldn’t look past twice on the street and someone you’d stay five feet away from. He’s vicious when he needs to be, but when it comes to his dogs, he retreats back into a paternal figure. It’s clear he had a life, but that life came with an expiration date. All he has now are his dogs. That is both enough and not enough at the same time. He still wants something, and he’s desperate for it. As a result, he is the most perfect dog in Amores Perros so far. Both rabid and tamed, almost no one can put a leash on him.

Amores Perros understands that the bridge between man and animal is not so distinct as it used to be. We all think we’re invincible, but we’re just a few steps away from losing everything. You can be on top of the world in one moment and in the blink of an eye you’re on the streets, foaming at the mouth and looking at the opponent in front of you. Nothing in this life is guaranteed. All you have is yourself, and your barest animal instincts.

FURTHER THOUGHTS

• This 4K restoration was done extremely well. Kudos to Rodrigo Prieto and Iñárritu. Those two know their shit.
• Watching this film made me very glad I identify as a cat lady.
• Watching Gael García Bernal in this film made me yearn for his quieter character in Y Tu Mamá También. He’s so fucking good.