Info or intox ? True or false ? Is it him or not? These are the questions that the viewer immediately asks before Bardo, false chronicle of some truths by Alejandro González Iñárritu, available Friday on Netflix. The hero of the film, played by Daniel Gimenez Cacho, is a Mexican documentary filmmaker based in the United States. He returns to his native country to receive a prize and looks like two drops of water to the director of babel, birdman Where The Revenant, who signs this feature film after seven years away from the sets.
“This physical resemblance is obviously no coincidence, confides Alejandro González Iñárritu to 20 minutes. I don’t deny that bardo talks about me and therefore has a narcissistic side. With as much humor as poetry, the filmmaker immerses the spectator in his “bardo” (intermediate state of consciousness in the Buddhist religion) for a fresco of nearly three hours where you are not bored for a single second. .
Between two countries and two cultures
“Thanks to Netflix, I had the freedom and the necessary budget for this very personal project, insists the filmmaker. I am convinced that my questions can speak to many people who, like me, sometimes feel like axolotls out of the water. This adorable pink batrachian which looks like a living Pokémon is one of the emblems of an abundant work discovered this year at the Venice Film Festival. The director offers a varied walk in a dreamlike universe where the hero finds his roots but also a vengeful former colleague while having to deal with his children seeking their identity between two countries and two civilizations.
A painful scene facing an immigration officer refusing to admit the American nationality of the hero underlines this malaise as much as a talk show where he is taken to task in front of the cameras. “I exaggerated everything but what the protagonist saw corresponds to my feelings,” insists the director. It feels like diving into the brain of this brilliant man for a visually stunning daydream. “I allowed myself everything, even the greatest delusions”, recognizes the director. He did well: reality and fiction intertwine for this bardo which looks like a sum film confirming the genius of its author.