Love is a Bitch in Amores Perros - Term Paper Example

The film is not a simplistic critique of the Mexican society. Rather it is a revelation of the human nature with all its frailties, speedily accentuated by the rapid social changes and a continual dilution of social values. Amores Perros depicts the darker side of the contemporary Mexican society and nudges the viewers to reflect on its disturbing and unjust dynamics. The film is set in the modern day Mexico City. The universal appeal of the film could be attributed to its illustrative depiction of the concepts of broken families and betrayal, the themes which tend to be common to most of the modern day cultures, societies and civilizations (Flynn 35).

The selfish and callous tendencies of the characters in the movie give something to relate to almost all its contemporary viewers, irrespective of the place or country which they live in. The pain of Mexico City as shown in the film is the inevitable plight of modern societies. Story Amores Perros is a film woven around the stories of three characters that are Octavio, Daniel and El Chivo, which in a way represent a microcosm of the contemporary, middle class, Mexican domestic scene. The family life of all the three characters is shown to have a common thread of deception running through them.

Octavio loves his sister-in-law Susana. He earns money by dabbling in illegal dog fighting. Daniel jilts his wife and daughter, to get into a relationship with a famous model Valeria. El Chivo fails to share a normal family life with his daughter Maru because of being behind bars. In the entire three stories one comes across disruption of family relationships, betrayal of intimacy and trust and flaunting of long cherished social and domestic values. The central characters in the story are depicted as trying to eke out a better life for themselves, but albeit through questionable and unconventional means.

The story raises many questions as to whether the unscrupulousness of the three central characters is the strictly personal marrow of their bones or are their lives helplessly simmering in the larger boiling pot of an age and times where achievement is about money only, beauty is simply about looks and family life is about convenience, opportunism and shallowness? The characters in the movie discernibly evince a stark disassociation and variance between feeling and thought, success and honesty, intimacy and fidelity and end and means, which strikingly seem alright and normal in the surrounding social landscape (Podalsky, 148).

This seeming normalcy of the things is what is abnormal and pervert. Class Depictions and Related Social Themes In the film, the lower middle class is depicted as being limited and constrained by self adopted and socially reinforced stereotypes, which glorify acquisition, street smartness and unscrupulousness. In such a socio-economic scenario, all the roads seem to lead to an idea of success that is also a dead end in itself. It endows its adherents with all the promised goodies, yet mercilessly snatches much that is simple, accessible and harmless.

The ghetto life in the contemporary Mexico is shown as being marred by preexisting perceptions, where the individuals brazenly feel justified and alright to act out the roles that are valued and encouraged by their social ambience. It is a male dominated society where the young women are both the subject and object of raw lust, deserving a high monetary,