Amores Perros (2000) - Mexican

Alejandro Iñárritu directs this drama set in the streets of Mexico which are teeming with violence. It is made up of three stories which are connected by a catastrophic, unbelievably violent car crash. What makes it more powerful is that the film begins with the shocking car crash, assaulting the spectator with an alarming event. Many have called it the Mexican Pulp Fiction, yet it is far from the dialogue heavy, idiosyncratic, new wave feel of Pulp Fiction.

Dogs are a heavy presence in the film and it's no surprise that when man's best friend is taken away, the flawed character relationships no longer have a crutch to stand on. Their relationships begin to reveal themselves in a healing light. Any sort of burdens that had been carried throughout the relationship reveal themselves and force the characters to reflect on each other.

Through the brutal streets of Mexico, three stories of love unfold, all connected through the instance of a car crash. The incident shifts each one of their lives by introducing elements that will change each of their relationships forever. It will reveal the truth of the love they each share. The magnitude of the car crash sets the three protagonists on a collision course with who they truly are, but not in a humanist way like that of Crash (2004), it is more an animalistic, instinctive way, drawing a relationship to the dogs in the film. A film that welcomed the millennium with a bang and took an approach to love that mirrored  that of man's best friend.