Not long into fussily titled Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, Silverio Gacho (Daniel Giménez Cacho), a famous documentary filmmaker, remarks to his personal driver “if you can’t play around then you don’t deserve to be taken seriously.” That sentiment seems to have been, at least in part, the main credo behind acclaimed filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez-Iñárritu’s latest, a surrealist epic that charts an increasingly elliptical course through the winding subconscious of its complicated subject: Iñárritu himself. The filmic comparison point that will immediately come to mind is Federico Fellini’s 8 ½. That film, often listed amongst the greatest of all time, is a masterwork of metafiction, a work born out of Fellini’s own artistic crisis in which he reckoned with his childhood, fame versus art, and writers block through an increasingly surreal lens.
In Bardo, Silverio struggles to reconcile his success with his integrity as a journalist and confronts his relationship with his Mexican heritage. If the similarities aren’t already apparent, the opening scenes of both films involve the main characters flying. It’s important to note that while Fellini manages to accomplish his story in around two hours and 18 minutes, Bardo currently sits at 152 minutes (22 minutes shorter than its Venice cut). Stocked full of inarguably impressive elements, it’s nevertheless an overwhelmingly indulgent project that begins brilliantly but succumbs further and further into tedium as it goes along.
Not to say there aren’t many elements to admire. Iñárritu has taken his own advice, producing some genuinely entertaining sequences that seem aware of their own absurdity. A set piece involving loose axolotls on a metro car, a massive restaging of a battle at the Mexican capital, or a mesmerizing oner through a film and television studio, inspire frequent cinematic awe. The stunning 65mm cinematography by Darius Khondji at times too closely resembles the work of Emmanuel Lubezki – who shot Iñárritu’s Birdman and The Revenant – but finds its own style through a near-constant use of wide-angle lenses. Despite its insular perspective, Bardo is in every sense “big,” tackling everything from the Mexican Revolution to issues of modern-day immigration.
Iñárritu surrounds Silverio’s world with bizarre and creative details, such as an imminent plan for Amazon to buy the entire state of Baja, California. It’s at its best when it acknowledges its own absurd scale, letting these sequences escalate with a dizzying combination of complicated camerawork and expert sound design. Bardo is less successful when it attempts to meld these elements with more standard emotional beats, and sinks under the effort of reconciling its strange, dreamlike visuals with more serious themes of grief and domestic drama. The screenplay, written by Iñárritu and frequent collaborator Nicolás Giacobone, wants to have its cake and eat it too, an oneiric journey into the subconscious that also doubles as a farcical portrait of an entire country in existential crisis. Instead of bringing out the best in each other, these competing ideas ultimately only serve to muddle.
It doesn’t help that Iñárritu tries to obfuscate criticism for his own indulgence by writing that criticism into the script. During an extended sequence at a gala in which Silverio is the guest of honor, he is admonished by a former friend and critic of his work for the nonsensical plot of his latest film. The plot? You guessed it: the film we’re watching. Acknowledging the potential criticisms of your work within the story is an interesting tactic, but Bardo does nothing to truly interrogate these ideas. “The movie is too indulgent.” Yes, the movie is too indulgent. “It includes too many scenes that don’t need to be there.” Yes, the movie does include too many scenes that don’t need to be there. Iñárritu has stated that he will continue editing the film until its official release date, though this is presumably the final cut. The final result could still be at least forty minutes shorter, especially towards the conclusion, which comes dangerously close to mimicking the ending of Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life.
Admittedly, a story such as this dealing so predominantly with issues of Mexican heritage may be more meaningful to that specific audience. There are many precise details throughout Bardo that feel authentic and personal, perhaps providing an added layer of meaning that won’t be present for some foreign audiences. That said, it’s the more universal themes failing to communicate here, including the bizarre use of a CGI baby, whose portrayal is initially comedic and effective before it becomes apparent that its significance is supposed to be far more serious. Even Iñárritu’s considerable directorial panache cannot rescue these moments from their uncanniness.
Whether or not you enjoy Bardo will ultimately hinge on patience. It’s a bit of a cinematic endurance test, riveting at points but punishingly drawn out at others. The performances are uniformly excellent, as are all the technical details. In a way, it’s a shame the film is headed straight for Netflix, as the ideal format to view Bardo would be in a theater where the sound and visuals can fully take flight. Then again, bathroom breaks may not be the worst thing. The issue isn’t completely one of excess – Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz is an excellent example of a self-absorbed but utterly enrapturing variation on the 8 ½ formula. Iñárritu’s latest is a vanity project that’s alternately genius and annoyingly arrogant, much as he has decided to portray his lead character. In that way, perhaps it’s a good reflection, just not a terribly interesting one.
Photo courtesy of Netflix
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