Directed by : Alejandro G Inarritu

Life is just a brief series of senseless events. You must surrender to it. 

Daniel Gimenez Cacho in a still from 'Bardo'

Spoilers ahead...


A decorated journalist who is now an independent documentarian, Silverio (Daniel Gimenez Cacho) visits his home place Mexico along with his family, wife Lucia (Griselda Siciliani), son Lorenzo (Iker Sanchez Solano) and daughter Camila (Ximena Lamadrid). Silverio is about to become 1st Mexican for a prestigious award in United States. Its also a sort of semi-biography of the director Inarritu himself. 

Felt the movie was way too self-indulgent, with some shots just meandering on. I did like most of the crazy creative sequences specially the hilarious way of showing the sorrow of losing new born child when the doctor says 'the child finds this world too fu*ked up to be part of'', though the reverse procedure of child birth was very gross to watch. 

Bardo actually means the state of body after death and before rebirth (if that really happens). In the movie, the way its filmed it gets tough to know which scene is real, which is a dream, which is part of documentary by the name 'False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths' and by the ending you realise there's a possibility maybe the entire movie took place in the head of Silverio. 

I liked the conversation Silverio has with his dad in a dreamy sequence, minus his odd looking face over his younger version (no idea the reason behind doing this). Even the bodies falling down one by one was good until its revealed what the actual scene is. Muting other person's voice or speaking without using lips was another interesting choice. There's a heated arguement Silverio has with his son about Mexico and immigrants. And also, we see how much Silverio suffers from the imposter syndrome. 

To be honest, there's a lot to like about the themes this film covers, some of them individually works, but as a collective film it never really engages me. Maybe its a film meant for either the art lovers or those who know Inarritu work closely as I have only seen 2 of his films in past. 

Still, no regrets of watching Bardo even if it wasn't really my sort of movie. 

My Rating : 5/10