Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths

Alejandro G. Iñárritu refuses to hold back in this imaginative work filled with deeply autobiographical elements.

A matter of life and death: Daniel Giménez Cacho

Made by the Mexican director Alejandro G. Iñárritu who is now sixty years old, this is a characteristically ambitious work which in other respects finds him on new ground. It’s a film that is highly personal and presents as its central character a distinguished Mexican filmmaker named Silverio, a role played by Daniel Giménez Cacho. Although Silverio is depicted as a journalist who has become a noted documentarian, the issues that concern him are ones that reflect matters so relevant to Iñárritu’s own life and situation that one regards Silverio as a figure standing in for Iñarritu himself. Indeed, the screenplay, written by Iñárritu and Nicolás Giocobone, echoes Iñárritu’s own life by making Silverio the father of two living children, Camila (Ximena Lamadrid) and Lorenzo (Jerónimo Guerra and then Íker Sanchez Solano) and giving him a third child, Mateo, who dies in infancy.

Bardo’s first interior scene features the birth of Mateo and it immediately establishes the stylised character of the work by presenting the death as a refusal by the baby to be born into this world which he describes as fucked. Instead of accepting his situation, the baby insists that he be allowed to go back into the womb of Silverio’s wife, Lucia (Griselda Siciliani). This episode is over before the title of the film appears on the screen and its surreal nature at once gives Iñárritu the licence to be freewheeling and fanciful throughout the rest of the film without any need to justify what he is doing. What follows does show Silverio returning to his own country for the first time in twenty years or more and doing so prior to going back to Los Angeles where he is due to receive a prestigious award. But, while that provides a logical and chronological storyline, Iñárritu is free to incorporate dream sequences, flashbacks and fantasy material, as in the sequence where Silverio encounters the ghost of his dead father in a club toilet. To give just one other example, early on we witness a Mexican TV show in which the host – that’s Luis, an old friend of Silverio played by Francisco Rubio – has him as his guest and then subjects him to a barrage of critical comments. Shortly after that, a scene with Lucia reveals that Silverio failed to turn up for the live transmission. Consequently, the broadcast that we have seen never happened and this confirms that the film is placing us inside Silverio’s head experiencing what he imagines as well as what is real.

What this approach enables Iñárritu to do is to touch on a whole series of issues, albeit that doubts and questions are what the film offers rather than answers. One basic matter is the extent to which an artist who has worked abroad so much is still able to think of his own country as home. Given that for Silverio any such home is Mexico in the 21st century, that leads on to his further unease. Is an artist justified in leaving in order to retain his freedom or should he have stayed, like Luis, and tried to take a stand in Mexico even if pressures there were likely to compromise his integrity? Indeed is a documentarist like Silverio feeding off life and its tragedies by filming when the honourable thing would be to become an activist? As Silverio looks back he doubts the value of the films he has made and in one memorable scene Luis severely criticises a film made by Silverio which has a great deal in common with the movie that we are watching. Furthermore, Silverio increasingly feels that his art has all too often prevented him from being a good father. As old-age gets closer, thoughts of death grow and what one has done with one’s life comes into question even more, as does the situation in which Mexico finds itself - its history past and present is also very much a concern of this film.

As is apparent from my description of it, Bardo is nothing if not adventurous but, even after cuts made by the director following its festival screening at Venice, it is excessively long and can seem self-indulgent. Its chief weakness, however, lies in the presentation of Silverio himself. Seen as a stand-in for Iñárritu, he may express exactly what the filmmaker wants to express but he lacks individuality and Daniel Giménez Cacho rather than making us feel for him is limited by a screenplay that reduces him to little more than a cypher. Even Iñárritu himself has described Silverio as a mere observer and that’s a drawback when we are being asked to spend so much time with him.

There are, of course, compensations here. Iñárritu is a great stylist who frequently favours long tracking shots which make the most of the film’s production values (Bardo was shot in the 2.39:1 aspect ratio and really does call out for the big screen). He takes great care with the soundtrack too, music included. The most memorable moments are those when his imagination hits on something special. One example of this is musical and that’s when David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ is heard with just the vocals and no accompaniment, a moment as potent as a freeze frame. Most telling of all is the symbolical scene in which people collapse one after another on the street and just lie there, symbols of all those who have disappeared in Mexico in recent times.

However, for all the artistry on display, Bardo is a concept which, intriguing as it is, suffers from being a work more striking on the surface than on any deeper level. Some have chosen to compare it with Fellini’s 8½ but, oddly enough, the film that is echoed in its structure is the Powell and Pressburger masterpiece of 1946, A Matter of Life and Death. In that film a fanciful narrative is given a rational justification late on in the tale and that same device turns up in Bardo despite it being set up at the start as anything but realistic. However, whatever your verdict on Bardo, those who see it will certainly take away memorable images. They include the opening shot of the film which is echoed at its close. Viewed from overhead it shows us a vast landscape with a stylised shadow of a figure running through it or even flying over it. Moments like that are truly haunting and totally original.

Original title: Bardo, falsa crónica de unas cuantas verdades.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Daniel Giménez Cacho, Griselda Siciliani, Ximena Lamadrid, Íker Sánchez Solano, Francisco Rubio, Jerónimo Guerra, Fabiola Guajardo, Luz Jiménez, Andrés Almeida, Daniel Damuzi, Jay O. Sanders.

Dir Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Pro Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Stacy Perskie, Screenplay Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Nicolas Giacobone, Ph Darius Khondji, Pro Des Eugenio Caballero, Ed Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Music Bryce Dessner and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Costumes Anna Terrazas.

Estudios Churubusco Azteca S.A./Redrum-Netflix.
Available on Netflix in US and UK from 16 December 2022.
152 mins. Mexico. 2022. US Rel: 4 November 2022. UK Rel: 18 November 2022. Cert. 15.