Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
It’s interesting how many filmmakers are suddenly feeling reflective about their lives and careers. With someone like Steven Spielberg (“The Fabelmans”), whose been a household name for 50 years, or Kenneth Branagh (“Belfast”), it makes sense- they’ve been people we’ve followed for decades. With filmmakers like James Gray (“Armageddon Time”) and Alfonso Cauron (“Roma”), it seems a bit more unusual, because while yes, they have been making films for decades now, it feels as though we’ve only started to really become aware of who they are as artists recently. With “Bardo,” Alejandro G. Iñárritu throws his hat in the ring in a way that feels less finite in its exploration of the ultra-personal, and more of a metaphorical sense of autobiography. The film I find myself coming back to is Fellini’s “8 1/2,” which also utilized surreal imagery and set pieces to explore emotional dilemmas the filmmaker was experiencing at the time.
One of our first introductions to Silverio (Daniel Giménez Cacho, in a terrific performance) is as he is in the waiting room of a hospital. He is awaiting the birth of his new child, Mateo, but he is not prepared to be born, so he is put back in Lucia (Griselda Siciliani). Silverio is a Mexican journalist/documentary filmmaker who lives in Los Angeles with Lucia and their son, Lorenzo. Mateo hangs over the movie, and Silverio and Lucia’s life together, even though they are happy together. Silverio always seems to be searching for greater meaning, however; is recent work was a documentary that blended fictional ideas in with autobiographical elements, and when he meets America’s ambassador to Mexico, he envisions moments from the 1847 Battle of Chapultepec. As he visits his home country, prior to being awarded for his work as a journalist in America, he grapples with his own history, and the history of the country he left, and his experience as an immigrant.
Iñárritu’s films have gotten more visually striking as he has begun to look more and more inward. For this film, he enlisted the great cinematographer, Darius Khondji, and they make for rich visual collaborators. There are images in this film that are breathtaking, whether it’s personal moments between a husband and wife; the surreal images Silverio encounters when he steps out of his mother’s apartment building; the aforementioned meeting with the ambassador to Mexico, or a walk across the desert that feels like a final reconciliation with who he is. Music plays a big part in it, and while it feels like hubris for Iñárritu to help compose the score himself, the work that he and Bryce Dessner (“Cyrano”) do is playful and ambitious in spades, taking us into the emotional landscape Silverio finds himself in, where big brass motifs sometimes have as powerful an impact on us as evocative strings. And yet, probably the most memorable moment musically involves Silverio, on the dance floor, and David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” where it almost feels like he’s the only one who can hear it.
It doesn’t matter when it happens in our lives, but we all reach that moment in our lives where we find ourselves reflecting on life in a deeply personal way. When that happens, how do we express those reflections? I’ve used either music, my podcast, or the written word in reviews like this one to express those thoughts. Whether we end up on the same wavelength as they are in how they express their own reflections on life, the fact that filmmakers share those thoughts with us is a gift. For me, “Bardo” did not land as profoundly as “Birdman” or “Biutiful” did, but the imagination and conviction with which Iñárritu shares his reflections is something to be appreciated all the same.
