CINE 722 FINAL PAPER Instructor: R.

L Rutsky Amores Perros: Legacy of a revolutionary father By Eirini Steirou

Introduction Contemporary Latin American Cinema has recently achieved a dynamic opening to the global market through the commercial success of several films, like Cidade de Deus (Brazil 2002), Nueva Reinas (2000) and Amores Perros (Mexico 2000). At the same time Hollywood film industry managed to seduce Latin American directors with some success. This new opening of Latin American Cinema came to revitalize decaying local markets and raise again international attention for the first time after the film movements of the late 60s. Amores Perros will be our case study in order to examine what does this commercially successful and internationally recognized cinema has inherited from Latin Third Cinema. Is commercial success contradictory with social criticism cinema? Of course generalizing should be avoided. Amores Perros will be closely examined and conclusions will be made on this particular movie.

Third Cinema Influence Third Cinema has made its appearance in Latin and Central America through different movements (Cinema Novo, Guerrilla Cinema, etc). The common characteristics of all these movements were that cinema was considered, besides artistic representation, a major political action against economic and cultural colonialism. Social criticism and the involvement of the spectator was its primary purpose. That cinema was not so much concerned with the individual, as with the community. From production to distribution it was thought to be an act of resistance against the dominant imported culture. To

an institutionalized cinema, it counter poses a guerrilla cinema; to movies as shows, it counter poses film as act or action as Solanas and Getino write in their 1969 Towards Third Cinema declaration of principles. That cinema was not only revolutionary in intention, but also in form, experimenting constantly with unconventional visual techniques and plot structure. The Tricontinental cinema must infiltrate the conventional cinema and blow it up according to Glauber Rocha in his 1967 manifesto of the Tricontinental filmmaker. In that sense, Amores Perros does not belong in Third Cinema discourse. It has a raw realist style, but stemming from a very elaborate production process. It has multi-character plot but they are individuals coming from different contexts that never really interact. Finally its promotion and distribution is well marketed and has nothing to do with guerrilla distribution and screenings. However the film incorporates social and political criticism for modern Mexico. Unlike more explicitly political filmmaking of the earlier era, this agenda is filtered through a personal, intimate, character-driven focus and shares high production values and an emphasis on an entertaining plot. (Shaw, 2000, 4)

Mexican film production and market. Mexican social criticism films flourished in Mexico during the 70s when proleftist policies of President Luis Echeverria Alvarez were in effect. Then the whole national film industry was nationalized. Directors like Humberto Hermosillo, Arturo Ripstein, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Paul Leduc had the opportunity to create political and revolutionary films. Just before the seventies, from the 1940 to 1960, there was the so-called golden age of Mexican Cinema, with annual production of 130 film per year. In that period production was private, in the model of the Hollywood studio system, backed by the state. In the 60s however that golden age came to an end, the production has dramatically fallen and there was a mass production of quick low budget films, the so called churros.

After 1976 however the national support dissolved in an effort to return production to private sector. The fate of socially conscious cinemas was activated by the newfound prosperity of petro-dollars and depended on the inherent ambiguity of state legislation. (Pick, 1993,29). That resulted in the production of more churros along with some interesting work of socially concerned directors. Leading to the 90s where the annual production fell in 8 to 9 films per year. Until year 2000 when Amores Perros and Y tu Mama Tambien made a worldwide commercial success that has drawn interest in Mexican filmmaking. Thanks to hits such as Amores Perros and Y tu Mama Tambien local productions have increased their market share from 3% in 1995 to nearly 20% in 2001. (Smith, 2003, 85) In general Latin American market is largely controlled by US-based producers distributors. Several countries have chosen to set protectionist policies in order to preserve a certain degree of autonomy in their internal market. Mexico is one of them, among Argentina and Brazil, from where contemporary successful films came from. Seems like Mexican cinema has, for the moment at least, achieved the holy grail of film making in a medium sized country: reconciling art and commerce. (Smith, 2003, 87)

Contemporary Latin American Cinema and Third Cinema influences As mentioned in the prologue, Contemporary Latin American Cinema is a success story (2000, Shaw, 1) but with a socially committed agenda (2000, Shaw, 5). Directors and producers are more aware of the international market and have learned how to raise funds, create more audience-friendly films and market their finished products. More production companies are investing in the Latin America and co-productions are a central factor in the internationalization process. (Shaw, 2000, 1) Socially committed agenda has to do more with injustice, corruption and poverty, but without directly naming who is responsible. The rise of audio-visual giants, funding by First World countries and a shift form the didactic Third World model predominant in the 1960s in favor of a postmodern politics of pleasure incorporating music, humor and sexuality. (Shohat, Stam, 1994, 29) are nowadays-common traits 3

of Latin American Cinema. National identity didnt matter so much in the times of Tricontinental revolutionary cinema but today national identity is used as a distinctive brand name (Shaw, 2000, 4) In the past industry film conventions were attempted to be broken, but nowadays conventions from popular genre formats are borrowed and engaged with social criticism. For example in Cidade de Deus all the conventions of a gangster films are used but in order to reveal the poverty and criminality of Rio favelas. There has always been anyway a love hate relationship with the dominant culture even in the years of Third Cinema. First and Second Cinema were questioned, but not without influencing Third Cinema. Amores Perros uses conventions distinctive of a psychological thriller, but enriched with telenovelas moral conclusions that wealthy are as frail and unprotected against fate as poor.

Amores Perros: The story, the setting and the characters. Amores Perros is a film written by Guillermo Arriaga Jordan and directed by Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu. It takes place in contemporary Mexico City, an overpopulated metropolis where inequalities coexist and often come in conflict The film is a network narrative of three stories that get involved through a car crash. The first story is that of teenage Octavio who falls in love with his sister-in-law Susanna and gets involved in dogfights in order to gain money for taking Susanna away. The second story is that of model Valeria and her lover Daniel. As soon as he abandons his family in order to live with her in their new apartment, Valeria gets severely injured and immobilized by a severe car accident, caused by Octavio. The third story is that of El Chivo, an ex-revolutionist that is thought to be dead by his own daughter, while he lives with a bunch of dogs in a barrack and works as a hired hitman. El Chivo is present in the car crash and rescues Octavios dog. The car-crash presented as the pre-credit sequence is the only actual connection of these different stories.

Dogs are crucial for their masters in the film. A parallel line between dogs and humans is drawn in order to underline the animal instinct side of human beings. The films dire realization being that man is capable of even greater viciousness than dogs (San Filippo, 2001, 2). Characters come form different classes of Mexico, but never get really involved besides from the accident. The links between them are metaphoric ones. However these three stories ultimately form one story as screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga claims The script posits a synthesis: the life of a man divided into three characters-a boy under twenty, a man of forty and of a man of sixtyThe three discover who they are and become themselves. They discover that pain is also a path towards hope. It is in these conclusions that the characters converge.1 One finds a recurrent theme, that of the absent father. In the first story the father of the two fighting brothers is already missing and both of them contest for the household lead role. In the second story Daniel becomes an absent father for his daughters in order to live with his mistress Valeria. Finally in the third story El Chivo pretends to be an absent dead father for his daughter Maru. That absence results in pain and suffering to their families.

Amores Perros: The visual style Amores Perros structure is extremely cerebral, but the film has a visceral, almost documentarist style. Handheld camera in proximity with the characters is used throughout the film. Dogfights are shot almost realistically and violence both among humans and dogs is depicted openly. The fancy plot structure in combination with the visual style and the fast editing led many critics to compare the film with Pulp Fiction. There is also close proximity with Mexican films that depict the conflicts and contradictions of a rapid cultural change in a tradition bound society (DLugo, 2000, 222) like BunuelsLos Olvidados (Mexico,1950), Jodorowskys Santa Sangre (Mexico, 1989) or Sara Gomez De cierta manera , (Cuba, 1974). Inarritu however, cleverly refused to cite one particular reference and refers to a big variety of mainstream and art films.
1

G. Arriaga (2001) Amores Perros(script), trans. Alan Page, p.x, London:Faber 5

Amores Perros promoton strategy and audience reception. Reading press notes and interviews of the producers of the film, one is amazed by the elaborate preparation and strategy developed for the film to be realized and distributed. The film was made exclusively with private Mexican funds. Co-productions with European funds usually prefer auteur-style films. It was sent to festivals judging where is it most possible to get attraction not necessarily to the most prestigious ones (Smith, 2003, 13) and the way it found its way to the Oscars is also explained as the production company engaged a Los Angeles publicist who specialized in the foreign film category and was rewarded as one of five nominees out of entries from over forty countries (Smith, 2003, 13). Director Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu was a popular figure in his country not for making films, but as a radio producer in one of the biggest radio stations in Mexico City. All his filmmaking experience came from the direction and producing of a number of commercials. The film in Mexico was well received with a whole range of different statements from the audience from well reception by middle class audience that recognized a reality in the film to rejection by working class audience Middle class workers could afford to keep a distance from the subject matter. Working class viewers said the film was sadistic, sad even disgusting, they always put Mexico down (Smith, 2003, 27)

Amores Perros: Representations of gender, race and class. Taking a closer look to the film we should examine the way representations of characters and settings work. Usually social criticism is inherent in characters representations. Amores Perros, in contrast to Third Cinema, doesnt subvert traditional representations of Mexico. Violence or social retard is a quality of lower class or brown skinned people, while progress of white upper class. Brownness presented more obsolete and whiteness more progressive even in tragedy ( Amaya, 2007, 201). 6

Women, also, hold traditional roles. Most of the time, they just suffer the consequences of their husbands or fathers actions, without attempting to revolt. Men have the traditional active role, women are more bound to raising their children, even in Valerias story, the injured model remedies her failed attempt to have a child with treating a dog like being her child. The types of maternal representations seen in Amores Perros tend to rely on traditional modes of suffering, caring passive women(Shaw, 2004, 86). In addition to that, in the heart of the film one can find classic modern and primitive conflict (DLugo, 2003, 226), a world of instinct that modern city masks (DLugo, 2003, 228).

Amores Perros: Mexicanidad, the Mexican representation. The film represents a society where Mexicans are free to engage in unregulated dog fights, where the police act as intermediaries of criminals to pay others to beat up or to kill their enemies, where violence and rivalry characterize relationships between brothers, where mothers are powerless and fathers are absent (Shaw, 2004, 95). Amores Perros deals with Mexicanidad, the Mexican perspective in cinema, in a way that always serves the story without ever standing out by itself. Music for example in the film does much to undercut the potential exoticism of the more exotic Third World experience for a more universal one (DLugo, 2003, 227). Inarritu said to Hispanic magazine in April of 2001 that he feels no responsibility to represent Mexican or Latin American cinema and be limited to an ethnic niche, when he was asked for his decision to move and work in Hollywood. Mexicanidad, as Paul Julian Smith defines it, deals with machismo, class conflict, migration, and womans role. All of these themes are present in Amores Perros, but not dominant. Inarritu avoids showing landmarks in his well-studied representations of Mexico City metropolis or makes only immediate references to Mexican history. He avoids both urban stereotypes of touristic glamour and ethnographic local color (Smith, 2003, 51). The influence of popular telenovelas, the inevitability of fate and moral

justice is also present but filtered through the plot and the wanted tone of a psychological thriller.

Conclusion As we already mentioned in Amores Perros as in most of the success stories of Latin American Cinema there is a hidden social agenda, but always subordinate to an entertaining plot. The theme of the absent father is also present in other Latin American films revealing a criticism of the guiding authority. The father is often the metaphor for the State that would bring consensus in a society where capitalism and consumerism make brothers kill each other. Deborah Shaw compares three films, Solanas El Viaje (Argentina, 1991), Salles Central de Brazil (Brazil, 1998) and Amores Perros in a recent article in The studies of Hispanic Cinema magazine2. In the two first films the absence of the father is considered more like a blessing than a pain . She concludes that these film deal with the failure of states to honor their contractual obligations to its citizens and each suggests its own solutions, either collective action (El Viaje), or a maternal fraternal paradigm (Central do Brasil) or a benevolent form of paternalistic patriarch (Amores Perros). ( Shaw, 2004, 99) In the polycentric cultural model we live in today, media imperialism is stll and maybe even more present than ever. Making a commercially successful film in film markets controlled by US based distribution companies couldnt be considered an act of resistance? Being a Trojan horse of social criticism, but disguised with common industry techniques, isnt that a guerrilla technique? The most critical lesson Inarritu has learned form his own Third Cinema fathers is that like Bunuels Mexican films, Ripsteins cinema is less caught up with depicting social reality than with developing a brutal even nihilistic but ultimately cinematic vision of Mexico. It is an approach that has shown strong appeal to European and North American audiences. Once again the
2

Shaw D.(2004) The figure of the absent father in recent Latin American films.Studies in

Hispanic Cinema1:2,pp.85-101,doi:10.1386/shci1.2.85/0

devastating portrait of visceral violence and fatalism becomes the privileged image of Mexico that most successfully travels abroad. (Smith, 2003, 51) I BIBLIOGRAPHY: Amaya H. (2007) Amores New Perros and racialised masculinities in

contemporary /ncin.5.3.201/1

Mexico,

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Cook D. (2004) History of Narrative Film, New York, W.W.Norton & Company DLugo, M. (2003) Amores Perros, 24 Frames: The Cinema of Latin

America, London: Wallflower Press Pick Z.M. (1993) The New Latin American Cinema: a continental project , pp.16-39, Austin: University of Texas Press Rocha Gl. (1967) The Tricontinental Filmmaker: That is called the dawn, Cahiers du Cinema Shaw D. (2007) Introduction: Latin American Cinema Today, Contemporary Latin American Cinema, Breaking into the Global Market, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Shaw D. (2004) The figure of the absent father in recent Latin American films Studies in Hispanic Cinema 1:2,pp.85-101,doi:10.1386/shci1.2.85/0 Shohat E. Stam R. (1994) Unthinking Eurocentrism, London &New York: Routledge Smith P.J. (2003) Amores Perros, London: British Film Institute Publishing

Solanas F, Getino Oct. (1969) Towards a Third Cinema, 25 Years of Latin American Cinema p.p17-27

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