OSCARS 2023: Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (2022)

One of the most notorious moments in the history of the Dissolve – the film website that would foster a wonderful community, that survives to this day via Facebook groups – was Scott Tobias' review of “Birdman.” He opened it with the immortal line “Alejandro González Iñárritu is a pretentious fraud.” It was a burn so to-the-point that it would become the first major meme of the Dissolve community. As Iñárritu has become a perennial award season favorite, scooping up two Best Director Oscars in the time since Tobias wrote that sentence, I think of those words often. Would the man himself even deny his own pretentiousness at this point?  Iñárritu's latest bit of self-satisfied claptrap is “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths,” another title so pompous it almost reads like a parody of pompousness. At least the Academy mostly resisted the bait this time, only giving “Bardo” a single nomination in the cinematography category.

Silverio Gama is a famous Mexican journalist and documentary filmmaker, who is about to be awarded an American honor for his journalistic integrity. This triggers an existential crisis in him, that plays out in a series of dream-like episodes as he visits Mexico in the days before the award show. Silverio and his wife are still haunted by the death of their child, who died a day after being born. This creates tension with his other kids, who are now teenagers. He struggles with the passing of his father and his mother being in her twilight years. He agonizes over his own status as a Mexican, his skin color, his own feelings about his home country. He also reflects on modern Mexican culture and its long, embattled history. He considers his own status as a filmmaker and the stories he reports on, whether he deserves these accolades and what purpose his work serves.

I think what irks me the most about Iñárritu's films is that he has no confidence in his own symbols. He has to tell you what everything means. “Bardo,” owing to its dream-like structure and magic-realism approach, is absolutely littered with symbols. A baby is born and is then pushed back into his mother. It's then explained this happens because the baby decided the world is "too fucked-up." Later, while Silverio goes down on his wife, the head of their dead baby peeks out of her vagina. Because little Mateo's death haunts them even in intimate moments. When imagining a meeting with his dad, Silverio suddenly has the proportions of a small child. Cause, you see, he'll always feel like a kid around his dad. That's the kind of movie “Bardo” is. It's packed, front-to-back, with loaded imagery and thinks the audience is too fucking stupid to understand any of it.

“Bardo” isn't satisfied to simply explain itself through blatantly obvious visual metaphors. This is a movie where characters don't speak so much as they lecture. Every dialogue exchange is a dissertation. When invited on a talk show hosted by an old friend, Silverio is unable to speak while the host rattles off every criticism of him he can think of. Later, the two meet up at a party and have a similar argument. There's a long scene set in the kitchen of Silverio's Mexican home, where Silverio and his son debate his feelings towards Mexican and the value of his films. While watching a farcical reenactment of a battle from the Mexican-American War, Silverio expounds on the specific meaning of everything that happens. Later, he meets Hernan Cortes atop a body of dead indigenous people, where they debate racial identity. Maybe the most insufferable moment in a movie with no shortage of them occurs when we actually see a clip of Silverio's documentary. It's an interview with a cartel drug lord, who delivers a long-winded speech about how the drug wars have changed the social structure in Mexico. On and on like this, “Bardo” absolutely sucks up all the oxygen in the room from its eagerness to explain itself.

It almost goes without saying that “Bardo” is also a hideously self-indulgent work. Silverio is clearly a stand-in for Iñárritu himself. Star Daniel Giménez Cacho even looks quite a lot like the filmmaker. One imagines that Silverio's doubt about whether he's a “real” Mexican after living in the U.S. for so long reflects a personal crisis for the filmmaker. This inner conflict, like all the others in “Bardo,” are made stiflingly literal during a scene where Silverio and his family argue with a border security agent at the airport. That's the second of about six endings this movie has, as it's bloated two-and-a-half-hour run time must stretch on. Part of why the movie is so damn long is because Iñárritu throws in every idea he has. “Bardo” isn't just a personal reflection on the director's own career and his culture, as it touches on a dozen other ideas too. Up to an including some Christ imagery, as if this wasn't pretentious enough. 

Considering how self-satisfied “Bardo” is in every way, it's unsurprising that Darius Khondji's cinematography is very show-off-y. There's lots of long takes, fancy angles, and wide-screen images. A few times these moments work for me. Such as a genuinely spooky scene where Silverio is left alone on a suddenly empty street. Or a dance scene set to a vocals-only version of “Let's Dance.” For the most part, “Bardo” is too unbearably smug to be enjoyed. I'm sure the negative reviews the film received will do nothing to dissuade Iñárritu and he'll be back with another project soon enough. Good for the folks who enjoy his work. I cannot count myself among you. [4/10]