BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths

Manuel São Bento

FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://www.msbreviews.com/movie-reviews/bardo-spoiler-free-review-lff-2022 "Bardo works best when it focuses on the dynamics between father, mother, and children regarding immigration and how this drastic life change impacts each member of the family nucleus. Alejandro G. Iñárritu takes advantage of all the awe-inspiring technical elements to build a story worthy of the big screen but lacks tonal consistency and narrative control. "Historical" recreations with q.b. Surrealism only makes the runtime feel heavier, and if it wasn't for Darius Khondji's superb cinematography along with exceptional set and sound design, this film would have been in trouble. Fortunately, there's a lot more to be enjoyed than to feel frustrated." Rating: B

Scott78

" Only Mexicans can turn this disgraceful defeat, into mitic victory ". A Brutal Masterpiece, A sensorial experience, watching Bardo is experience a brutal portrait of a estate of mind, is a trip around memories and dreams, in a better way to call it a recollection of memories and experiences. Really worth checking out,

CinemaSerf

"Silverio" (Daniel Giménez Cacho) is a journalist with a bit of a superiority complex who has long since moved from his Mexican home to live in the United States. Unexpectedly, he wins a prestigious quadrennially-awarded prize that requires him and his family to return to his homeland - a place where is he not going to be universally welcomed. Initially minded to sneer at the more suburban attitudes of his ertswhile friends and colleagues and dismissive of their small town, social media driven, mentality he is soon challenged by the rabbit holes of his own memories. Like many of us, of a certain age, reminiscences may appear as factual as the day is long, but there are often something of the exaggeratedly Quixotic about them. His are no different, only he starts with a much broader canvas than many as we descend into a world where discriminating between the real and the embellished, the fake and the surreal becomes just as hard for us as it does for him. It's as if his mind is deconstructing the life he actually led and replacing it, like it were Lego bricks, with something more acceptable, laudable and enjoyable too. This journey takes us all back to his roots and at times it's quite good fun using an eccentric, "Grand Budapest Hotel" (2014), style of colourful and creative cinematography, but trying to make much sense of the story or to establish any sort of structured plot is probably going to be a frustrating exercise and so I found wasn't really worth the effort. This is an outlandish product of Iñárritu's florid imagination that ebbs and flows accordingly. When it flows, it's entertaining, quirky and characterful. When it ebbs, well it's actually quite a drudge that I struggled to remain engaged with. On balance, there is probably more of the former than the latter, but at just shy of three hours this often seems more like a solid dose of self-indulgence from both the director and from the on-form Cacho as he relishes the role throughout. If I were you, I'd see it on a big screen for watching on television might just tempt you to hit the fast forward button once or twice.