FILM
REVIEW - AMORRES PERRES
Some points to bear in mind. 1./. it
is good. 2/. It is depressing
3/. animals suffer harrowingly in it, especially dogs, so if your squeamish, don't see it for that reason.
It's a Mexican
film, a first for me, and winner of this years Best
Film at Cannes. It's actually three connecting stories, the first is
about a young man who dreams of raising enough cash to run off with his
sister in law, (her husband beats her badly regularly), the lad gets his
chance when his Doberman runs off one day.... A viscous gangster who breeds
champion killer dogs for dog fights practices by setting his dogs on any
stray or lost dog in the streets, he tries to set it on an old enigmatic tramp's dogs, but the tramp shows a large machete and the gangster
takes his dog away, and then it sees the Doberman, which unfortunately
kills the prize fighter stone dead. Gangster leans on the owner to pay
him for his dog's death, owner realises that making his own dog take
part in such fights will make his dreams come true, but his fights are
almost always against the same gangster's pets, finally, with enough money
already to fuel his dream and the pregnant girl on the brink of agreeing to go
with him, the young man uses some of the money to have brother in law
beaten close to death, and then the last dog fight in which he plans to
recover his losses, goes wrong when the gangster shoots the dog.
The dog is badly hurt and bleeding severely, young man tries to rush
it to a vet but not before angrily stabbing the gangster who gives chase to him
in big car chase scene resulting in the young man crashing his car into one
driven by a young woman coming the other way - in fact the film starts with
this chase, as it is the link between the three story strands - we see the
tramp seen earlier coming to assist the rescue, and the story
shifts focus onto the lady in the other car, she is an up and coming
actress who has just netted a major perfume advertising deal, (we have
seen her ads and chat show appearances on the TV sets of other characters
so far) rescued from the crash, but with her leg badly broken, and forced to
wear callipars and sit in a wheelchair, she has little to do but sit at home
playing with her cute little terrier dog, while her husband (who may or may not
still carry a torch for his own ex-wife) goes to work.
Unfortunately the new house he bought her is not the dream home they
expected, the floorboards are rotten, The dog actually falls through a small
section of them, and is trapped under the house, unable to get to it the
actress hears it yelping for hours on end and goes mad with distress, -her husband comes home but is unable to help, so the torment goes on for
days, then, finally getting herself out of the chair, she looks in the hole
to find it full of rats, and still hears the dog yelping - her hubby want s
to put poison down to kill them, but she knows her dog is still in there, -
driven crazy by this she tries to kill herself, but only succeeds in
cutting the blood supply to her leg, so that gangrene sets in and she loses
the leg, angry and bitter the hubby tears the floor apart and rescues the
dog, reuniting it with her as she comes home.
The last and best of the stories is that of the tramp, El Chivo, who
was once a major assassin, (Carlos the Jackal style) until caught and
imprisoned for 20 years), which caused his wife to (with his permission at
first) fake his death for their daughter, only to find 20 years on that he
wants to re-introduce himself. Meanwhile Chivo is visited by the bent cop
who apprehended him all those years before, (a great sleazy sliceable
performance by the actor playing the cop) a final; job of killing a young
man's brother in a revenge motivated assassination run, Chivo agrees,
takes half the money (with agreement to be settled up after the job) and
sets off, with his dogs in tow to stalk the victim,, - he is doing this when
the car crash happens , and after helping free the human victims, Chivo
makes off with the wounded Doberman, nursing it back to health and adding it to his menagerie, but while Chivo goes out to steal photos of his
daughter from her house, the new dog uses its killer instincts to waste the
rest of the pack. Chivo almost kills the dog, but forgives it and tames it,
he then goes after the victim again, catches him, kidnaps him and ties him
to a pillar in the cellar of Chivo's home for several days, - making the
other brother who he calls Abel comes to pay the money, Chivo takes it, and
kidnaps him too, locking him in the cellar with the brother, and the gun,
leaving them to sort their own mess out without involving him, - he then
cleans himself up, leaves a tearful answering machine message on his
daughter's phone confessing to all, assures her he will be back one day and
leaves town with his new dog, in the background we see the posters of the
actress from the perfume ads being taken down, and the now blind in one eye
brother-in-law walking arm in arm with the girl who stayed with him in the end anyway......
Not exactly cheerful fare but very well acted, especially the Chivo strands of the story.
Arthur Chappell
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