It was only after finishing this that I learned that it is actually considered part of director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s loose trilogy of films that he made at the beginning of his career. Oddly enough, we’ve now watched all three of the films but I’m pretty sure that we did so in reverse order. This one is more like Babel than 21 Grams however in that it is an anthology of three separate stories, all of which are set in Iñárritu’s native Mexico.

The first of these stories is about a young man who is in love with his sister-in-law. He discovers that his family dog excels in fighting other dogs and uses him in dogfighting matches to earn money with which he hopes to persuade his sister-in-law to run away with him to start a new life. The second story is about a rich businessman who has an affair with a famous model and abandons his existing family to live with her, with a beloved pet dog being a symbol of their relationship. The last one is about a street vagrant who was once a guerilla fighter and is now secretly an assassin for hire. He is estranged from his family and has no one but a pack of dogs in his life.

The obvious common factor between all three is the prominent role of dogs which Iñárritu’s apparently intended as a symbol of loyalty. But all three stories also involve plenty of violence, pain and love of one kind or another. The English translation of the title is Love’s a Bitch, which gives a clearer idea of the themes that are present. There’s some deliberate wordplay here since perros literally means dogs. Personally however I found the loose association between the stories to be trite and not really interesting. Indeed, I find myself souring even on the very concept of anthology films. If each of these stories are individually strong enough, surely they’d merit an entire film of their own. Otherwise make them explicitly short films without trying to be clever about typing them together as a single film.

It doesn’t help that of the three stories, none are truly outstanding. The first one is probably the best, both due to the shock value of seeing the underground dogfighting scene as well as the intimate portrayal of a working-class household in Mexico with multiple family members having to live together in close proximity. The story of the street beggar as hitman is at least intriguing while you work out what’s up with him and guess what he will end up doing. But I found the story of the businessman and his mistress to be wholly predictable and completely uninteresting. There are certainly no profound truths to be found in any of these stories.

Still, the stories are at least competently filmed and they do convey the desperation and grittiness of life in Mexico. The first story in particular is fantastically energetic, even if I think the director resorts to too many quick cuts. Even if Amores perros isn’t particularly good, it’s still a solid film that might be worth watching especially since it is the only one of Iñárritu’s films that is in Spanish and set completely in Mexico. You’d be well advised to temper your expectations however as not only does it fall quite a bit short of the quality of both of the films that would later come to complete this trilogy, but it’s very, very different both in style and in substance from the astonishingly good Birdman.