The Top Directors Working Today: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

With only 3 major features, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has quickly risen to the top of artistic and challenging filmmakers. There's a great deal to be said about Inarritu, and he has potential coming out his ying-yang, but I really want to see what he does with a less fragmented narrative and without writer Guillermo Arriaga, who penned all 3 features as well as the BMW short "Powder Keg".

Based on what we have, I'm definitely interested in anything Inarritu chooses to make even though I've only liked AMORES PERROS. I believe he's either going to start creating a string of classics, or he'll implode in a mire of his own ambition. It's too easy to compare him to the other 2 Amigos, Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro. I think he's the least of the three. He certainly has more artistic ambition than Guillermo, but perhaps too much so. Cuaron is that rare bird who can blend bold art with very commercial cinema.

When writing about him I thought of Baz Luhrmann. He also only has a trilogy of similar films to analyze him from. AUSTRALIA will be a real make or break on Luhrmann for a lot of you. The question is how much of Inarritu's style will stay throughout all his films (like Sofia Coppola, who hasn't made a trilogy so much as the first 3 parts in an epic tone poem?) I expected stronger support for Inarritu. I knew there'd be a "need to see more" factor, but still I thought he'd impressed a lot more of you. Even if he has yet to reach his full potential, he's still created some remarkable films.

According to the poll on Filmspotting...

5% think he's one of the Best, and he's getting better.
10% think he's Great, but wouldn't put him in the Top 10.
35% think he's solid, but only sometimes Great.
5% think he's Good, but don't think he'll ever be Great.
25% think there's nothing special about his directing.
20% need to see more first.

I think he's great though I seem to give more credit to Guillermo Arriaga, who wrote the films. 21 Grams is great though it's editing made the whole film puzzling.
-The Void99