LATIN AMERICAN FIL

M,

2000’S

AMORES PERROS (LOVE’S A BITCH)Director, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarrudo, Mexico, 2000

1) Hit in Mexico and around the worlda) Storyline transcends boundaries: fast-paced narrative styleb) Characters more universal in moresc) Debt to slick kind of Hollywood pop cinema

2. Central Theme: Contradictions of cultural modernity in contemporary Latin American society.

3. Not cliched Mexico for tourists but a modern Mexico with cell phones, boom boxes, and fast cars.

4. Won many awards: Main national film award in Mexico and nominated for Academy Award, even though a bad time for Mexican film.

SETTING OF THE FILM1. Depiction of violence embodied in the omnipresent dogs of

the title

2. Mexico City depicted as a place of danger masked by the illusion of modernity

3. This construction of the setting serves as a pointed interrogation of the position of

Latin America’s increasingly urbanized culture—the slip zone between communities on the margins and mass-mediatized global culture.

SCRIPT: GUILLERMO ANIAGA JORDON1. Captures the violence of contemporary Mexico City

2. Foregrounds an eccentric style of storytelling and editing

3. Builds on a soundtrack derived from visual Models such as MTV and Pulp Fiction

4. Rooted in conflicts and contradictions of rapid cultural change at the end of the 20th Century reeling from decades of corrupt politicians, a demographic explosion, and the not unrelated increase in urban violence.

NARRATIVE: OPENING1. Pre-credit sequence of car chase establishes the tempo of

speed and violence

2. A bloodied injured dog in the back of the car serves as a link to other stories.

3. Car crash ends with inter-title—Octavio and Susana—a flashback

4. The crash anchors three interlocking stories.

http://youtu.be/NCOXqoqs54w

OCTAVIO’S STORY1. Set in drab working-class neighborhood2. Involves two subplots:

a) sexual attraction toward brother’s wife, Susanab) adoption of his brother’s dog, Cofi to use in illegal dog fights

and earn money to run off with Susana.

DANIEL AND VALERIA1. Linked with Octavio’s story by talk show, Today’s People,

that features Valeria and her dog Ricci2. Daniel is a magazine editor, and Valeria is his mistress

model with image of herself selling perfume on a billboard3. Daniel leaves wife and children and sets up house with

Valeria4. Valeria is hit by Octavio in the car crash as she goes to get

Champaign to celebrate5. Valeria is now wheel-chair bound, since her legs are

destroyed (leg amputated after a second fall trying to get her dog Ricci out from under floorboards

6. Billboard changes at end—an end of her career and dream of idyllic life with Daniel

MARTIN EL CHIVO1. Revolutionary turned paid assassin2. Paid to gun down Luis, Gustavo’s partner and half-brother3. Instead, kidnaps Luis and ties up Gustavo so they can fight

it out4. Goes to leave money and message with estranged daughter,

Maru5. Leaves for a new life in Mexico City with Cofi, whom he

rescues from the accident

AMORES PERROS’S THEMES AND TROPES1. Highlights urban fragmentation and a spiritual desolution rooted

in the modern megalopolis

2. City is both modern and primitive, glamorous television world and animalistic violence outside it

3. Television feeds fantasies of less fortunate

4. Title=underscores the condition of the three protagonists (perro=the instictual, animal nature of obsession

5. Lives crash in all three narratives

AMORES PERROS’S CINEMATIC STRATEGIES1. Fast paced editing style as in Run Lola Run (1998)2. Extreme close-ups to emphasize characters’ mental

agitation3. Use of soundtrack music emphasizes editing4. Transnational context leads to universal themes5. Cinematic intertextuality connects film with Pulp Fiction.

THE SWAMP (LUCRETIA MARTEL, 2001) TITLE1. Name of town near Bolivian border2. Describes mud in which animals are trapped and die3. Describes how life is paralyzed and people are resigned to

eke out an existence in a foul and putrid atmosphere4. Highlights the sultry heat

LA MANDRAGORA NAME: MECHA’S PROPERTY1. Pepper farm and mansion owned by Mecha, the mother in

the main family2. Also is the name of a plant (mandrake) which was used as a

sedative3. Highlights decadence in opening sequence of drunks around

a pool 4. Parallel to ox trapped in the muddy ground5. Agony of the ox and of Mecha are watched—ox by children,

and Mecha by husband and friends. Only teen daughter and maid help her when she falls.

NARRATIVE OF THE SWAMP1. Accidents unite two families

a) Mecha’s—owner of red pepper farm: has four children and a husband (Gregorio) who (like her) is an alcoholic

b) Tali, Mecha’s cousin, a middle class wife to Roberto with four children, one of whom is accident prone2. According to Martel, “Family is a living and self-sufficient organism where the bodies, apart from their ties to blood, are linked in time, weariness, lunch time, bathrooms, in situations where the body is less exposed to social convention.”

FAMILIES CONTRASTEDTalie and Rafael vs. Mecha and Gregorio1. Loving Alcoholic and selfish2. Stable Unstable3. Middle class Land owners4. Wishes for Bolivian trip sinister?

THEMES: SCARS AND SEX1. Children are scarred, both literally and figuratively:

a) Joaquin, Mecha’s younger son, lost an eyeb) Jose, Mecha’s older son, bruised in a fight over maid,

Isabella2. Attraction/love

a) Momi and Isabelb) Veronica and brother, Josec) Mercedes and Jose/Gregorio

FEMININE NARRATION?1. Different sides of male characters:

a) objects of desireb) turbulent agentsc) far from core of story: Jose arouses curiosity, and

Rafael emotes unconvincing calm (keeps wife from going to Bolivia by buying school supplies)2. Seen from female perspective—set in home where women rule here

OTHER THEMES1. Family: mirror of bourgeois society shattered after years of

dirty war, corruption, and economic woes2. Nature: Characters disconnected from natural world, in

disturbed relationship with nature3. Sensuality: soundtrack—almost constant sound of thunder

announcing a storm (both literal and figurative), harvest bugs, explosion in Tali’s home when husband won’t talk to her, distorted voices of Tali’s daughters in the fan, squeaking chairs, clanking ice, etc.

STYLE IN THE SWAMP1. Long sequence shots with motionless portraits contrast with

hand-held camera shots2. Vision of human body3. Mountain sequences4. Siesta scenes with brothers and sisters together5. Slow passage of hot days beside the stagnant pool6. Last line Momi utters, “I didn’t see anything” refers to the

Holy Virgin image she seeks, as well as other literal and figurative elements of the film.