Daniel Giménez Cacho as Silverio
Silverio Gama, a renowned documentary film-maker and journalist, returns to Mexico with his family, after living for years in the USA, to receive a prestigious international award. Silverio is overcome with an existential crisis, feelings of impostor syndrome, a full-blown mid-life crisis and powerful visions that are tinged with the grief of losing a still-born child that he cannot put to rest.
A theme of grief runs through the film which then echoes in the death of some fish he purchases for his son. He relives his traumatic memories over and over again, as he is involuntarily immersed in different versions of the same vision. Despite being visually stunning, the storyline is hard to follow as the scenes gradually build to a downbeat climax. Silverio questions his success, his mortality and the emptiness in his life. He pulls his dreams apart but gets few answers. Lost & bewildered, he ends up immersed in a past that leads him nowhere.
At one point, Silverio believes he understands Hernán Cortés (the conquistador who took Mexico), at another, he is as a widower gazing out of a window from an empty matrimonial bed, or the documentary film-maker shooting immigrant refugees. His mind is overflowing with thoughts but, at the same time, empty with nothing but a dreadful silence. All the while, Iñarritú takes is on an almost psychedelic journey through Silverio’s mid-life crisis packed with dreams and visions that get ever darker.
Through Silverio, Iñarritú mocks the commercialization of success that seems to point to a dead end. He pretentiously pokes fun at pretentiousness. We catch the resentment from previous colleagues who feel, that by leaving for the US, he abandoned them to their tacky TV programmes in Mexico.
Silverio and his family
The film begs the question of how much autobiographical angst Iñarraitú injected into this film. Is there an element of hubris? At just under 3 hours, the film begins to drag about half-way through. That is around when we begin to understand some of Silverio’s reasoning, but one gets the sensation that Iñarritú fell in love with too many takes, special effects and endless sub-plots and could not bear to pare it all down. A pity, as the sheer magnificence of the visuals are really powerful, worthy of the top director we know him to be.
There is quite lot of humour but with a knife-edge attached, as a sense of bitterness and loss still pervades most of the film. Has Silverio ‘lost’ Mexico? Is there such a thing as home any longer? What does it mean to be human?
The production survives the film’s length thanks to the stunning photography, effects and sound design (with well-chosen psychedelic tracks like John Lennon’s I am the Walrus) that impart their own textures and visual language that fills many of the blanks. Its impact in these terms could rival other Mexican films, like ‘The Shape of Water’, yet somehow one feels that Silverio (aka the director) got lost in the dark corridors on the way.
It is nevertheless, ‘Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths’ is not to be missed, with its courageous, awesome magic-realistic madness, that takes you on a journey that is fascinating, whether you understand it or not.
BARDO, FALSE CHRONICLE OF A HANDFUL OF TRUTHS (2022) BY ALEJANDRO G. IÑARRITÚ
Limited UK and Irish cinema release from November 18th 2022
Stream on Netflix after December 16th 2022.
CREDITS: -
Directed by Alejandro G. Iñarritú / Screenplay by Alejandro G. Iñarritú & Nicolás Giacobone / Produced by Alejandro G. Iñarritú and Stacy Perkie Kaniss / Cinematography by Darius Khondji / Editor: Alejandro G. Iñarritú / Music by Bryce Dessner & Alejandro G. Iñarritú /
Cast: Daniel Giménez Cacho, Griselda Siciliani, Ximena Lamadrid, Iker Sánchez Solano, Andrés Almeida, Francisco Rubio. Grantham Coleman.
