The key event that links the film's storylines is a Mexico City car crash. In the backseat of his car is his beloved Rottweiler, Cofi, which Octavio has been using in illegal dog fights. The film is broken roughly into three separate but coincidentally linked stories that weave strange, obsessive tales of love and redemption. Inarritu's kinetic camera gradually slows, forcing the audience into the film's own mediative rhythms. Through it all, the violence of Mexico City seethes and twists just beneath the surface.
Dogs only kill when they have to.
You can't say the same for humans. And in a different story, connected only by the vaguest of canine coincidences, the hit man El Chivo lies in bed in his filthy, lean-to shack. He grabs his taped and worn glasses from the bedside table, stares at the crumbled ceiling. In that moment, he laughs back at God.