When it premiered at the Venice Film Festival, this past September, Bardo was one of the most awaited films of the whole event.
Indeed, Bardo was the return to features of celebrated Mexican director Alejandro G. Iñarritú after an absence of 7 years. His last film, The Revenant, gave him the Golden Globe for Best Director. He also took home a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay – Motion Picture for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), in 2015. He was first nominated in the Best Director category in 2007, for his work in Babel.
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths was his return to filming in Mexico. The international success of Amores Perros, his debut feature that was nominated for Best Foreign Film in 2001, opened up opportunities for him to make films in Hollywood and in Spain. He never went back.
Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths tells the story of Saverio (Daniel Gimenez Cacho), perhaps an alter ego of the director. Just before receiving an important award in Los Angeles, the city that became his own for two decades, Saverio returns to Mexico with his wife, Lucia (Argentine actress Griselda Siciliani). Tagging along we see a daughter who attends college in Boston, Camila (Ximena Lamadrid), and a teenage son, Lorenzo (Iker Solano). Saverio analyzes his difficult relationship with the United States and Mexico while tending to the deep wounds that the loss of a newborn baby had on him and his life partner.
Written by Iñarritú along with Golden Globe winner Nicolás Giacobone, the film goes way beyond this simple synopsis as the fantastic and the real get mixed, allowing the audience to interpret the story in many different ways.
In a Q&A moderated by Golden Globe winner Guillermo del Toro, the man behind The Shape of Water was very adamant when explained his perspective: “For anyone who is confused about the plot or what it is about, my condolences. The movie is called Bardo, which means limbo, or a form of limbo. It’s about a guy who tries to fly but the past weights him down and ends with him finally flying. How can they not get it?”.
The first screening didn’t work as expected. That’s why Iñarritu decided to cut 22 minutes, leaving Bardo at 159 minutes for its commercial release. The international cast of the film also includes Chilean Luis Gnecco, American Jay O. Sanders, and Spanish actor Ivan Massagué.