Rating: 8/10
By now, we know that Alejandro Gonarez Inarritu is a great film-maker. He has directed two more brilliant movies (21 Grams, Babel) and two amazing short films (one of the 11 in 9′11″01, and one for the BMW series). But in his debut film itself, he shows his prowess.
The plot consists of three intersecting stories, linked by an accident shown at the start of the movie. There is Octavio, in love with his sister-in-law, Susana. He decides to fight his dog in order to make enough for them to leave his brother and mother for ever. The second story is of Valeria,a famous model and Daniel,a magazine publisher, who leaves his wife for Valeria. They are also affected strongly by the accident. The third involves an old revolutionary, Chivo, who now does “jobs” for a sum. He longs to talk to his long-separated daughter (who thinks he’s dead).
The plot will invoke comparisons with Pulp Fiction, but the similarities are (mostly) superficial. This movie is more emotional, less “fun”, but almost as entertaining.
The themes follow from one story to another. The first and the second share a theme of betrayal and infidelity, and the second and third are both about lost glory. There are subtle and rich implications present in all stories (How do you trust a person who has betrayed someone, even if he betrayed them for you? Will you yourself, if given a chance, kill a man who you paid to have killed?)
But there is almost nothing these stories share superficially, except the accident, and dogs. Dogs are important to all three stories. The trained dogs do wonderful jobs.
The acting is uniformly good, although some actors shine more than others, particularly Goya Toledo (Valeria), who is intense, and Emilio Echevarría (Chivo), who says much with his eyes. Watch how Emilio’s voice trembles during the penultimate scene of the movie.
Inarritu amazes with his direction in his debut film. The pacing is excellent, and so is the editing. The atmosphere is heavy. The moie is slickly shot, and Inarritu directs with a moving camera, which involves us immediately in the action. Reminds me of Scorcese.
There are problems, however. Most of them lie with the story. As I said, these movies share almost nothing superficially, and the movie feels like three stories, not one. The first story is a rather cliched one, and is saved only by Inarritu’s blazing direction. “Daniel and Valeria” deserved more time, as it is the most heart-wrenching story of the three.
This also affects the structure, as we cannot return to the earlier stories after we move on (unlike 21 Grams, which handled 3 stories in parallel). The structure feels fragmented, like Pulp Fiction, which was able to avoid this difficulty by entertaining us thoroughly. Here, we get emotionally involved, and it is dissapointing to not return to Valeria’s story after Chivo’s tale begins.
But Inarritu succeeds at making a strong debut, and tell three disconnected stories, covering a range of emotions and situations equally well. At times he is playful, at times dramatic, at times stylish, but always brilliant.
Notes:
-I was particularly impressed at how he intercut the sequences to show the time order of the events.
- Two characters from different stories turns lights on-and-off when they are uneasy.
- The middle story is almost unconnected from the other two, which are more strongly connected. Again reminds me of Pulp Fiction, and the place of Bruce Willis’s story in it.
- Inarritu reportedly said that “Love’s a Bitch” is not an accurate translation, so I don’t know whether the title is meant as a pun or not.
Edit: Added a note about structure.
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Anonick
