Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero / The Daily Beast / Getty / Netflix
After winning the Best Director Oscar for each of his prior two features (Birdman, The Revenant), Alejandro González Iñárritu might be forgiven a bit of idiosyncratic indulgence. Unfortunately, Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths is an extravagantly navel-gazing bridge too far.
Using Federico Fellini’s 8½ as its foundational inspiration (with a sprinkle of All That Jazz thrown in for good measure), Iñárritu’s latest is a self-referential chore, one whose chaos is as constant as it is obvious, and whose fancifulness is both knocked and defended by the film itself. A carnivalesque auto-celebration-cum-critique that strives to touch upon a wide range of issues—including Mexican identity, artistic independence and co-option, and familial trauma and regret—it’s a deep dive into shallow existential waters.
Iñárritu trimmed 22 minutes from Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths due to its less-than-stellar reception at the Venice and Telluride film festivals. Still, in its final two-and-a-half-hour version—premiering on Netflix on December 16 following a theatrical run beginning November 4—the film overstays its welcome, replete with at least four different scenes that would have sufficed as a fitting ending.