BARDO: FALSE CHRONICLE OF A HANDFUL OF TRUTHS

Bardo indulges too much in its own surreal idiosyncrasies and has hardly any interest in satisfying anyone else but the director and his self-loving, his self-doubt, his self-identity.

There is some inventive, visually imposing filmmaking going on in Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, that is beyond doubt. Whether anyone should actually care about it, now that is another thing.

Clearly director Alejandro G. Iñarritu uses the picture to exercise some personal demons, not dissimilar to how Federico Fellini approached his 8 1⁄2, but that is where the similarities end. Bardo indulges too much in its own surreal idiosyncrasies and has hardly any interest in satisfying anyone else but the director and his self-loving, his self-doubt, his self-identity.

Iñarritu himself even seems to realise this, as halfway through the protagonist of the film - a thinly vailed stand-in for the director himself - has a heated conversation with a critic about the arrogance in his creative endeavours, yet the protagonist, like Iñarritu, forges ahead anyway, literally blocking any critical sounds.

So while there is some merit in Bardo, I ultimately found very little joy or insight in the picture.

release: 2022

director: Alejandro G. Iñarritu

starring: Daniel Giménez Cacho, Griselda Siciliani, Ximena Lamadrid, Iker Sánchez Solano