The Depiction Of Amores Perros Film Studies Essay

The Depiction Of A more thans Perros Film Studies EssayDuring the twentieth century, Mexico was experiencing an sequence of economic instability and an obvious di resourcefulness of loving classes. In Amores Perros Irritu, the director brilliantly portrays the distinction in the separation of the classes, and the effect of the preservation on society. In Amores Perros, Daniel, Octavio, Susana, and El Chivo represent the three social classes in Mexico, the abounding, the poor, and extreme poverty. Octavio and Susana clearly represent the lower class. Irritu emphasizes the lack of whiff and space through the characters dialogue and setting.Perhaps the timing of release was precise, (Mexico was weeks taboodoor(a) from its presidential elections that bust the 70 year term of one-class ruling), scarce Amores Perros (Gonzalez-Irritu, 2001) a ground-breaking Mexi great deal sprout under wise Latin American picture made record-high box office success deep d throw its very low few weeks of showing. Its sheer braveness and boldness at showing literality of action in the urban center served to shock and reveal to millions of people how mod-day springylihood was in the one of the busiest energy enthusiasticspots of the World of a field brimful with positive and negative energy, that lead people to the brink of despair.The metropolis is presented as exclusively Mexican, yet one that is non dissimilar from other cities in Latin America, whereby violence, egoism and lust are omnipresent and whereby, as a great deal as they are fundamental to ones survival, are as well as the very indicate for ones downfall. Iarritus interpretation of the DF (Mexico City) is a reflection of society that lives in invari open fear, under great pressure, and in complete turmoil, literally and mentally. He has produced an cozy social study of the people that make up and shape the city into what it is to this day. Without exaggerating the lack of law and cast, h e demonstrates that for the mass of its city-dwellers, the underworld is the only preference if one is to survive. The director hooks us into the diegetic world of the film by condensing into three interconnected stories the images of the general pain of daily disembodied spirit as well as the social, political, and economic inheritance of todays alienated early days and the elders who have prepared this crushing scenario for them.1Iarritu decided to reveal the more sinister side of what it is like to be living in the DF, and offered the sweetheart a subtle criticism of the Mexican political situation that feeds the rich and abandons the poor.In certain aspects his interpretation of the city differs from the mood cities are shown in other Latin American and Hollywood films. His DF is as real as real gets you win some and you lose some, but that is simply the way life goes.An ideal comparison is that with the 2000 Hollywood film by St yet Soldbergh, Traffic, which also combines three distinct stories into one, whereby one of the plats is set in Mexico. Interestingly, the director chose to consumption a handheld camera for the Mexican scenes only. The Mexican story appears grainy, rough, and hot to go with the rugged Mexican landscape and congested cities (1b). Shot through a sepia lens, it gives Mexico City a feel of a sleepy, developing-world term city, as opposed to Iarritus interpretation of a cutting-edge modern metropolis. Soldbergh contrasted the sepia-tinged Mexico with a savory tinged USA,, whilst Iarritu, on the other hand, used slue bleach and tinged the images with blue. Steven Soderbergh chose Hollywood stars namely Catherine Zeta Jones, Michael Douglas and Benicio Del Toro to play the leading roles which gives an unreal feel to the film, keeping the viewers one step away from reality. It demands the viewer to claim certain ludicrous twists. What further sets it apart from the viewer is that the plot involves high-profile characters muc h(prenominal) as the CIA, High Court American judges, and famous drugs cartels. What sets Amores Perros apart from other films that represent the city is that the characters are real, and based on characters one would visualise in the street.Most filmmakers living in Mexico City have cancelled a blind eye to its problems or treat them superficially and thus fail to face reality. Iarritu has not. Instead he has chosen to hear a broader segment of society by looking at a trilogy of situations and characters interwoven across the class lines and geographies of contemporary urban Mexican society.(2) Gonzalez-Iarritu broke the expectation that many people had with take care to their view of the future of Latin American cinema.As he said himself, I am not a Mexican with a moustache and a sombrero and a nursing bottle of tequila () nor am I a corrupt cop or a drug trafficker. There are millions like me. And this is the world I live in and the one I want to show.(2b)In Amores Perros I arritu shows the consequences brought on a society from a city that offers nothing but a proliferation of social injustice, political corruption and neo-liberal dogma.However, although Iarritu did to some extent read on serious social and philosophical issues, Amores Perros had a principal accusative to entertain. Be political campaign the film did not receive any governmental funding, Irritu was able to experiment with the social and cinematographic content.Crime and violence are key themes in the film, yet, unlike Hollywood, these events are not sensationalized but instead are presented instead mundanely. The story of Octavio and Susana is the most emotionally tense of the three and involves high levels of violence, expediency and lust. However, all the stories work together, each with its individual tone and rhythm, in ordering to create a fuller image of life in the city. firm redact, such as in the dogfight scenes, forbids the viewer from obtaining a real understanding of what they are seeing, reflecting the confusion and fast-pace of city life. By overloading the film with scenes of corporal titillation he manages to create an intensification of our emotions hence reflecting those of the characters on screen. Violence indoors the film is rife, when even Ramiro is prepared to gun down his dog, danger is eer a threat lying just around the corner.The cross-editing that occurs when Ramiro is cosmos shell up and Octavio is having sex with Susana is full of dark connotations of the violence and the phenomenon of family breakdown in Mexico today. Whilst Octavio may appear innocent and peaceful, he is still inflicting pain upon his brother, who in turn will have it thrown back at him when he runs away with Susana with his savings. The violence hence is cyclical. The scenes draw the viewer in with an over-load of violence, blood, fur and sweat, and a soundtrack of Lucha de Gigantes to emotionally move them. Iarritus grainy choice of settlement and s kip-bleach, together with hand-held camera, a blurry vision, artificial lights, and a blue tint, give a instinct of film noir, or gangster genre, which reflects absolutely the underworld and under-class that they live in.Violence is not only a way out of poverty however, as is seen within the third story, another Cane and Abel-type plot whereby Gustavo Garfias hires a hit-man, El Chivo, to murder his very own brother. A approximately less tense sequence, El Chivos story reflects that of Octavios in many slipway some(prenominal) opening sequence are in a car, and both follow a Cane and Abel theme. This reoccurring family rupture accentuates the affects city life has on its inhabitants and suggests that Mexican society itself is spiralling down into a vortex of violence.The physical and psychological mutilation, amputation, death, bloodshed, and cold-blooded killers-for-hire are not merely literal images but metaphors for something even more disturbing that holds society togethe r- our animal nature that we try and domesticate,3 and ironically so, it is the homophile who emerges as the most destructive. This is because they have been envenomed by avarice and self-interest, but at the same time have also been made to mystify from the actions of others.The violence presented is on the one hand very believable. Via setting, cinematography, use of little-known actors and even soundtrack, Iarritu has given the viewer a real thought of the violence in Mexico City. The soundtrack is filled with pulsating music, squealing automobile tyres, and alternative whimpering and barking dogs. 3b domesticated family violence, dog-fighting and shop hold-ups are common in every society, and Ramiros secret felonious hold-ups also seem very realistic, as Iarritu has not glamourized them. On the other hand, one could also argue that El Chivos story is roughly too fabled from the viewers point of view. A regular bourgeois man, turned Revolutionary, turned hit-man may be sl ightly too intangible asset to believe yet El Chivos methods of killing however, are very unglamourized and in that respectfore believable.Gustavos desire to have his brother killed is purely out of self-interest and greed for money, the consequence of a neo-liberalist, capitalist world. Gustavo represents a typical young middle-class man desperately trying to preserve his social and economic status, and being consumed by envy and greed, is willing to go to great lengths in order to do this. His weak character contrasts greatly with the larger-than-life presence of El Chivo who represents the opposite end of the political spectrum, of a schoolteacher turned Revolutionary. El Chivo is the most down-to-earth character in the film, distanced from the ills of society, who has chosen dogs as his touch on companions. After all, they obey, they are loyal, and they do not even protest inhumane treatment. They lick the hand of the owner to the very end.4 Dogs contrast hugely with valet de chambre in this sense. This story is an interesting insight into the life of a nobody, of a near invisible, who in fact has had the most interesting life out of all the characters. His life is not driven by a sense of self-interest, as the only thing he has in his mind is the sledding of his daughter, and the money that he acquires from the assassinations he carries out is all for her. He owns no flash belongings, except the watch and ring he found in the dump which he considers treasures.However, at the scene of the scare away, he does nothing to table service the victims, but steals their money and their dog. He seems to have no patience for human beings, only a great pity and deep love for animals. He laughs when his victims are in the sweetspapers, but cries when his dogs are killed. This love for his dogs contrasts greatly to the brutality of treatment of the fighter dogs within Octavios story and the dog serves as a link to suggest the world in which he lives, where hu mans are devoured by self-interest, and where they are made to fight to their deaths. Dogs also serve as a link in which to compare the distinctively different lives of the social classes so apparent in Mexico and the rest of Latin America. Whereas Chivos dogs are pacifistic and rugged, (a direct reflection of their owner,) and Octavios is made to fight, Richie, a spoilt, kemp poodle, reflects his owner, the billboard model Valeria.The majority of the principal characters have obsessive temperaments, which in the end will needfully lead to disappointment. Octavio has little or no family ties but instead lives in a cocoon of instincts and drives which compel him to pursue his brothers wife, who herself falls victim to her own self-interest and enters an intense internal relationship with him. Valeria is obsessed with her looks, and Gustavo with his social status. Iarritu has purposely highlighted this human flaw of extreme self-interest and contrasted it with a dogs faithfulness.V aleria, whilst herself the cause of another familys break-up, has her hopes shattered with the ruin of her modelling career. When before, she would look out of her penthouse windowpane and see herself on the billboard, she now sees it has been taken down only to be replaced with advertisement for new publicity. Her colleague who tells her to forget the campaign breaks the news with no remorse, and the cycle of self-interest falls back on her. On a film that puts so much importance on every wiz event running up to the crash, had Daniel neer left his wife, then Valeria would never have left the house to buy a welcome gift, and the crash would never have happened. Had he overcome his feelings of self-interest and lust with regard to Valeria, there would be no tragedy in which to tell the tale.Iarritu shows how in every aspect, and on every level of daily living, self-interest is insidious. It is, again, the presence of three correlating stories that helps to portray how real each cha racters story is whilst the characters playing is also very believable.Amores Perros oozes lust and it is this sin that causes the destruction of the family unit in the case of both Octavio and Daniel. Adultery is a recurring theme in many films, and therefore it does not offer a new vision of life in the city as such, although in a dog-eat-dog world as is that in the DF in Iarritus interpretation, it is not only the vertical guys who is betrayed. Whilst Ramiro is having illicit sex with the girl from work, little does he know that his very brother is seducing his young wife.The cinematography of the love scene between Octavio and Susana is, as was previously mentioned, sweaty and very passionate, yet it has not been glamourized. They have sex in the laundry room at home, Ramiro with his mistress in the stock wardrobe at work, and Luiz Miranda Solares with his woman in a plush motel in the city. This sexual energy so common in Mexican society is psychologically and physically des tructive and can only bring about problems. On the other hand, Iarritu suggests that only those who live love intensely can escape the vulgarity of their everyday existence in the city. Therefore no matter which route one takes, they are destined to an unfulfilling existence.It is perhaps because there are multiple human flaws and vices presented in this film that Iarritu does not delve too deeply into the theme of adultery. The pace of the film is too fast and so is that of the city, and the resulting destruction created by adultery plays only a small part in the destruction of Mexico City as a whole.Amores Perros certainly did on the one hand offer a new vision of the city to non-Mexicans. The fact that one of the set designers was foreign herself meant that she had a very rich appreciation of Mexican culture and neither enlarged nor minimised its presence within every aspect of the film. The city within the film is a purely Mexican phenomenon via even the smallest details, be th ey mundane ethnical activities, style of dress, mode of speaking or behaviour.Amores Perros had no Hollywood influences nor did the Mexican government play any role in the films content. This is important in order to appreciate the balance between message and entertainment determine within the film.Perhaps what makes the stories so real is how the director interweaves politics within the everyday lives of the characters, placing their individual despairs within an undeniably political setting, suggesting that there is no escaping from the environment in which one is living in. It is this reality that gives a new vision to life in the city.On the other hand, certain elements within the film do not suggest any new vision of life in the city. The exaggerated circumstances of each character leads the ratifier to link it with Hollywood films that employ over-dramatized plots, dramatic backing tracks, explosions, and fast editing to name a few stylistic features.Corruption and instabili ty within everyday living are stereotypical of Mexico, and Iarritu has not avoided these stereotypes. However, as they are portrayed within an everyday existence, he has avoided branding these as a Mexican phenomenon. Furthermore, it has to be said that a film with no abnormalities would be unsuccessful, for where is the excitement in this? Iarritu has created an exciting film oblation a new vision of the city based on violence, self-interest, and lust. sound out Count 2761Referencesp.86 Throwing Politics to the Dogs, by Claudia Schaefer1b. p.87 Throwing Politics to the Dogs by Claudia Schaefer2. p84 Throwing Politics to the Dogs, by Claudia Schaefer2b. www.imdb.com/amoresperrosp.96 Throwing Politics to the Dogs, by Claudia Schaefer3b. p85 Throwing Politics to the Dogs, by Claudia Schaefer4. p96. Throwing Politics to the Dogs, by Claudia Schaefer