The premature film testament of Mexican director Alejandro Iñárritu

In Buddhism, ‘bardo’ is a transitional state between life, death andreincarnation. The soul rehashes the past life in anticipation of its reboot.In such a state is the famous Mexican journalist and documentary filmmakerSilverio Gacho, the alter ego of director Alejandro Iñárritu in feature film_Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths_ – indeed yes, a pretentioustitle. It is a virtuosically designed, self-righteous self-examination that isreminiscent of Fellini’s self-parody and to Gaspard Noé’s cinematic end-of-life care Enter the Void.

Director Silverio wanders in Bardo around in memories and dreams: about hisfather and mother, family and success. Big and intimate issues tumble overeach other. His uprooting, his split between Mexican pride and the need forrecognition by gringos. It is about culture of violence and narcotic terror,conquistador Hernán Cortés enthroned on a lurid pyramid of Indian corpses. Theintimate trauma of baby Mateo, who only lived for 24 hours, turns out to be aleitmotiv. After birth, a doctor pushes him back into mother’s vulva: humorthat Freudians can sink their teeth into.

Threatening talk show

The intentions of Bardo are immediately clear: in the desert a shadow liftsitself from the ground with great leaps until it flies. We are in dreamland.Two-time Oscar winner Iñárritu enchants us there with beautiful scenes thatflow into each other with dream logic. Silverio wades into his living room viaa flooded subway car, watches a comic battle with the American ambassador,rambles through a hectic TV studio to a menacing talk show. Voices fromanother world can be heard in the sometimes familiar, sometimes disturbinginner world of his family. Something is seriously wrong with Silverio. Wewon’t find out until much later.

It’s actually fantastic that tens of millions of dollars have been invested insuch a personal, unruly art house project. With Alejandro Iñárritu, Netflixhopes to repeat the performance of his friend Alfonso Cuarón in the comingOscar season: his Roma childhood memories in black and white, won threeOscars from ten nominations in 2019. Bardo that won’t work. In Venice, thefilm press put the prestige film through the meat grinder in September, afterwhich Iñárritu cut out 21 minutes in shock. The current version still lasts 2hours and 40 minutes.

Fellini

Too long, pretentious, narcissistic, was the criticism Bardo at its premierein Venice. A director who digs into his own psyche was a novelty in 1963, whenFellini introduced it in . Resembles that movie classic Bardo sometimesreferred to: with humpa music, a death march, a tender farewell to a deceasedfather. You also suspect that Iñárritu is after his glorious double whammy_Birdman_ (2015, four Oscars) and The Revenants (2016, three Oscars) feltjust like Fellini did at the time. World hit La Dolce Vita in 1960 led totemporary paralysis: how do you deal with so much success?

Fellini broke in his creative block itself becomes the theme: alter egoMarcello Mastroianni, as star director Guido Anselmi, gets stuck in a sciencefiction film. He barely has a script and doesn’t really believe in it, but thecircus has already started and the producer built a very expensive movie setfrom a missile base. Dragged along in the maelstrom, Anselmi flees in dreamsabout his youth and the (many) women in his life.

came out when the French ‘author theory’ had just broken through andfitted in wonderfully well. According to that idea, the vision of the filmdirector is all-determining: the big man, the general on the set. Alsodissecting yourself in the film makes you the ultimate author. wasjubilantly received and inspired many imitations: in 2012, directors found itin the global Sight and Sound poll still ranks as the fourth greatest filmof all time. No wonder. “Make films about yourself, that is what everydirector wants,” I heard Martin Koolhoven say on TV this week.

However, Fellini’s followers often lack something so delightful: self-mockery. Guido Anselmi is a joking figure, his dream about a harem in which healternates between spoiled Nero, baby or lion tamer remains a hilarious parodyof the male ego – Fellini’s ego.

Midlife crisis

Iñárritu has the content of split in two in his oeuvre. His movie_Birdman_ was previously about the creative process: a (stage) director triesto get a grip on crew, actor egos and his own ambitions. Bardo is now aboutthe director’s ego. That soon threatens to become ludicrous and sentimental: alove letter to himself, I read somewhere. Yet it is missing Bardo certainlynot humor and self-relativization. Opponents repeatedly point out thehypocrisy and contradictions of Iñárritu’s alter ego Silverio. During aswinging fiesta in his honor and glory, ‘frenemy’ Luis verbally fillets theentire film in terms that real critics can easily copy. It would be a tangleof pretentious associations about private life, politics and cosmos thatmerely shed light on the director’s midlife crisis, according to Luis.

In the film, director Silverio silences the critic with a short wave of hishand. Bardo takes place in his brain, where his will is law. What we see isSilverio’s comatose self-image: a sincere family man, a tragic figure full oflove and unresolved grief who can look back on a successful life.

Due to the completely subjective form of Bardo Iñárritu can hardly maintainan ironic distance from his alter ego. He falsely relies on us viewersironically decoding his character, I suspect. But viewers don’t do that: theysee what they see. Then becomes Bardo an ego trip and it doesn’t help thatIñárritu mixes minor suffering with major historical themes, as if they allhave the same weight. And then a cinematic will of a 59-year-old also feels abit like Trimalchio’s dinner from Petronius’ Satyricon – also filmed byFellini, by the way. In it, a vulgar Roman rich man stages his own mockfuneral, with followers stroking his ego with treacle and exaggeratedmourning.

That does everything Bardo shortage. Iñárritu’s self-mockery comes across asbad, but if you step over it, you end up with a film full of ambition andunforgettable images that strikes bizarre, sometimes disconcerting emotionalchords. A train wreck of great beauty and originality at the intersection oflife and death.

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