Love's a Bitch

Amores Perros. Translated it means "love's a bitch." Great name for a film. Great film.

My previous post was about me recommending movies. I recommended I Stand Alone to a co-worker, who liked it. In turn, she brought me her copy of Amores Perros. I watched it last night and was fairly impressed. It was a long film, and if you are squeamish about animal violence (there is a lot of dog fighting), you may want to stay away from it. If, on the other hand, you are one of those people really excited about yet another Terminator sequel, you will definitely want to stay away. The film is depressing, violent and makes you think. In other words it is in that genre of films known as "box office poison."

American films have a huge following worldwide. They have influenced a whole new generation of filmmakers, too. (The French have revolutionized the horror genre, surpassing the Japanese.) What I find interesting, however, is that the films coming to our shores from overseas are generally excellent films. They seem to leave out a lot of the things American audiences are known for loving. Now, maybe we aren't seeing a lot of the crap over here. Perhaps there is a series of Rambo clones coming out of Armenia, but I don't know about them. I think this is good not only for the viability of importing foreign films, but for film as a whole. American directors will always embrace the crap formula films (there's an audience for them), but the new camera hounds will be exposed to other things, and that can only help their filmmaking. I'm not a purist when it comes to art. I think different cultural influences can only help the art form grow.

I will be thanking my co-worker tomorrow. She and I will probably take some time in the day to discuss the film, what it meant, our thoughts on it. Much like we did with Gaspar Noe's nihilistic bit of depression. I enjoy those kinds of conversations. They don't get inspired by things like White Chicks.

Love's a bitch, and so is stereotypical cinema. Give me something to make me think any day over car crashes and played out love scenes.