The latest semi-autobiographical opus from a filmmaker to drop in mere weeks, Amores Perres <\/em>and Birdman<\/em> director Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu follows his fellow Mexican compadres<\/em> Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro and does some personal, possibly award-winning work for Netflix. While Bardo<\/em> is supposedly about Silverio Gama (Daniel Gim\u00e9nez Cacho), a Mexican journalist \/ documentarian, you know damn well this is all about I\u00f1\u00e1rritu. (Dude even looks like I\u00f1\u00e1rritu.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bardo<\/em> is mostly a batshit fantasia. Gama (and I\u00f1\u00e1rritu) flows through a dreamscape that\u2019s supposed to represent his life, complete with mundane moments with his fam and wildly insane sequences, usually involving throngs of people \u2014like when he and a cluttered, cascading dance floor groove to a vocals-only version of David Bowie\u2019s \u201cLet\u2019s Dance.\u201d Veteran cinematographer Darius Khondji captures much of the action through a fisheye lens, making the movie look like a late \u201890s hip-hop video that was directed by Hype Williams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right from the jump, I\u00f1\u00e1rritu (working again with Birdman<\/em> screenwriter Nicol\u00e1s Giacobone) lets you know Bardo<\/em> is an insane, introspective ride. After all, it\u2019s right there in the title. In some Buddhist circles, bardo<\/em> is an intermediate, transitional, or liminal state between death and rebirth, so expect a lot of surreal shit to flow through this thing. It practically begins with Gama\u2019s wife (Griselda Siciliani) giving birth, only to be informed by the doctor that the baby wants to be shoved back inside, which is what happens. (The bloody umbilical cord drags behind her as she and Gama walk out the hospital.) The baby then pops out at the most inopportune moments, like when Gama is trying to get his cunnilingus on. We know this represents the baby they both lost long ago, but still \u2014 gotdamn!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout the two hours and 39 minutes (for Chrissakes!) that Bardo<\/em> plays out, I\u00f1\u00e1rritu attempts to spotlight his Mexican heritage, while also garishly dramatizing why he wanted to distance himself from said heritage to begin with. As much of a love-hate relationship he has with his homeland, I\u00f1\u00e1rritu is still ready to show, when it comes to his people, he\u2019s still ride-or-die. This is evidenced when Gama has a heated back-and-forth with Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes atop a pile of dead bodies. And although I\u00f1\u00e1rritu beats his critics to the punch by having characters comment on Gama\u2019s pretentious tendencies (one of Gama\u2019s colleagues practically gives a thinly-veiled, scathing review of the movie we\u2019re watching when he scolds Gama about one of his films), I\u00f1\u00e1rritu still silences those critics when their complaints gets on his nerves (he literally takes that colleague\u2019s voice when he tires of it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time you get to the finale (where we learn why we\u2019re watching what seems like one man\u2019s fever dream), you may just accept that the flighty, long-winded Bardo<\/em> is just I\u00f1\u00e1rritu saying that, even though he makes movies where Brad Pitt and Michael Keaton are the stars, dude always has Mexico on his mind. “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths” is now in limited release and streams Friday on Netflix<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/bardo2-1024x576.jpeg\")
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As you probably expect, Bardo<\/em> is an extravagantly self-indulgent exercise in navel-gazing. Acting as though Federico Fellini\u2019s 8\u00bd<\/em> and Bob Fosse\u2019s All That Jazz<\/em> never happened, I\u00f1\u00e1rritu creates a savvy, self-reflexive portrait that buzzes with bizarreness, but you may start to wonder if that bizarreness is the only thing this spectacle has going for it. There\u2019s a touching scene where Gama has a heart-to-heart with his deceased dad in a dingy bathroom, which would be a meaningful moment if I\u00f1\u00e1rritu didn\u2019t superimpose Gama\u2019s head on the body of a little boy throughout most of the scene. It\u2019s an obviously freakish sight to behold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/crookedc-01.svg\")
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