Amores Perros

Dir: Alejandro González Iñárritu. 2000. Starring: E. Echevarría,G. García Bernal, G. Toledo. Spanish. Cine en Espanol.

Alejandro González Iñárritu may be best known for his film Babel (2006) or 21 Grams (2003), but his first feature film, Amores Perros, shows his ability in weaving stories together through the commonality of human suffering. Made in his home country, Mexico, the film is set in Mexico City, featuring three stories that are connected by a single car crash. Within these stories contain intensified, passionate characters with tales of love, loss, and dogs.

In the first, Octavio becomes involved with the dog-fighting business in order to make money so he can run away with his sister-in-law Susana and begin a new life. This plan falls out of reach as tragedy pursues, and the story ends with more than the loss of dreams.

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Posted by:
Tiffany Huang
Apr 26, 2008 5:24pm

Blindness

Dir: Fernando Meirelles, 2008. Starring: Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Gael García Bernal. Mystery/Thriller.

A friend's mother used to have one of those tacky plates expressing homilies hanging up on her kitchen wall. Hers read, "Lord, if you can't make me thin, please make all my friends fat." There's a sort of religious fanatic's wish fulfilling fantasy expressed in that message, namely: "I don't want to be happy, but others to be more miserable." Only, it doesn't quite get the desire for power correct; more accurately, it should've read, "make my friends fatter than me." Peter Parker would've hardly captured the dork imagination had he only been given the strength of his high school arch-nemesis, Flash Thompson. No, he needed to become vastly superior. A thought experiment regarding this fantasized superiority complex comes by way of Fernando Meirelles' film adaptation of Nobel-laureate Jose Saramago's novel, Ensaio sobre a Cegueira (An Essay On Blindness). I haven't read the book (too busy with comics), but it sounds pretty close to the film's.

The story takes place in the not-too-distant future in an unnamed city where an epidemic of "white blindness" breaks out. The afflicted characters describe the blindness as swimming through milk, and the grey shapes fading into a white fog digitally created for the camera eye reinforce this description. A more allegorically rich name for the film might've been The Ganzfeld ("whole field"), since the affliction bears a close resemblance to the old gestalt effect of creating a sort of snowblindness with a homogeneous distribution of light across the retina. The ganzfeld parallels the redistribution of power relations among the blind and the seeing within the story. As it were, "seeing the light" no longer has any beneficial effects for the sighted (just as belief in a god has no real moral benefits for the religious, if the millennia-old Christian support for torture is any indication).

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Posted by:
Charles Reece
May 12, 2009 3:55pm

The King

Dir: James Marsh, 2005. Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Pell James, William Hurt. Drama/Thriller.

Every so often there comes a film that makes one question the motives of the individuals responsible for the picture that’s painted through the moving frames you see on the screen. Sometimes, not only do the motives come into question but perhaps the morality as well. It’s a very rare thing for an artist, director, writer, musician, etc. to push one to the brink of trust. The co-writer and director of the film The King, James Marsh, is one of those artists. An artist that paints a picture so bleak and disturbing that it becomes nearly impossible for one not to claim irresponsibility on the part of said artist. My description of the film might be a bit dramatic when in fact the film itself might be a bit melodramatic, but either way, this film will get you at your core and it will stay with you long after you view it.

The King tells the story of an afflicted young man by the name of Elvis (Gael Garcia Bernal) who, after just recently being discharged from the US Navy, goes on a journey to connect with David (William Hurt), the father he’s never known. After the first confrontation, David makes it clear to Elvis that he is not welcome. Suddenly, David is conflicted as he is faced with the moral responsibility of telling his family. What’s so conflicting is the fact that David is a minister at the local mega-church, as well as a respected member of the community, and he had no idea that he had a son other than the one who he calls “son.” Despite David’s warning to Elvis, Elvis forces his way into David’s life without him realizing it. Elvis’ presence in the family circle proves to be disatrous for all involved. From its mesmerizing opening to its violent and dreary climax, The King provides the audience with a look into the lives of those who are driven by faith, passion, and hatred, yet makes no judgment on those lives and allows for the audience to judge for themselves.

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Posted by:
Travis King
Nov 11, 2009 5:22pm
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