PostED ON OCTOBER 15 2022

Filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu, crowned with Academy Awards for Birdman and The Revenant, is back in his homeland of Mexico, where he shot his last film, Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths.

Bardo is a Tibetan word that refers to the Buddhist concept of a transitory state, floating between death and rebirth. It indicates the strong dreamlike dimension of this free and abounding work in which Iñarritu, back in Mexico City more than twenty years after his breakthrough film, Amores perros, has placed many autobiographical elements. Iñarritu is a Mexican director who has "conquered" Hollywood, and Bardo forges links with Alfonso Cuarón's Roma: the same return to the homeland, the same elegiac tone...

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Nevertheless, instead of a structured narrative, Iñarritu prefers a kind of "stream of consciousness” style, in line with a reflexive cinema. His model remains Fellini's 8½: in tragi-comic mode, a creator questions his path, his failing inspiration, even his own legitimacy.

What brings him closer to Fellini is the breadth of his vision (and the means at his disposal), such as the scene evoking the war between the United States and Mexico in the mid-19th century. The movie was shot on 65mm film, with the lights masterfully set by the great cinematographer Darius Khondji. "But this is deeply personal, immersive cinema that evinces much soul-searching, about both individual and national cultural identity, creeping mortality, the price of acclaim, the conflicted heart of the returning expatriate, the porousness of time and the seductive labyrinth of memory. Perhaps most revealing is the corrosive consideration of living and working in a country that has shown such cold imperialistic arrogance toward his own.” (David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, September 1, 2022)

Aurélien Ferenczi

Weekend screening:

Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths by Alejandro González Iñárritu (Bardo, falsa crónica de unas cuantas verdades, 2022, 3h)
> INSTITUT LUMIÈRE
Sunday, 16 October, 8:30pm