Wikipedia

Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths

Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (Spanish: Bardo, falsa crónica de unas cuantas verdades), or simply Bardo, is a 2022 Mexican epic psychological black comedy-drama film co-written, co-scored, edited, produced, and directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu.[2] The film stars Daniel Giménez Cacho alongside Griselda Siciliani, and follows a journalist/documentarian who returns to his native country of Mexico and begins having an existential crisis in the form of dreamlike visions. The title refers to the Buddhist concept of the bardo, a liminal state between death and rebirth.[3] It is Iñárritu's first film to be fully filmed in Mexico since Amores perros in 2000.

Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Mexican release poster
SpanishBardo, falsa crónica de unas cuantas verdades
Directed byAlejandro G. Iñárritu
Written by
Produced by
  • Alejandro G. Iñárritu
  • Stacy Perskie Kaniss
Starring
CinematographyDarius Khondji
Edited by
  • Alejandro G. Iñárritu
  • Mónica Salazar
Music by
Production
companies
  • M Producciones
  • Redrum
Distributed byNetflix
Release dates
  • September 1, 2022 (2022-09-01) (Venice)
  • October 27, 2022 (2022-10-27) (Mexico)
Running time
  • 174 minutes (Venice cut)
  • 159 minutes (Final cut)
CountryMexico
Languages
  • Spanish
  • English
Box office$43,116[1]

Bardo premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival in competition for the Golden Lion on September 1, 2022, and was released in theaters on November 18, 2022, then streamed on Netflix on December 16, 2022. The film received polarized reviews from critics, who praised the performances, cinematography, and direction, but were divided on its writing and runtime. It was selected as the Mexican entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards, making the shortlist of fifteen films, but was not nominated. It received a nomination for Best Cinematography at the 95th Academy Awards.

Plot

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Silverio Gama is a Mexican journalist turned documentary filmmaker living in Los Angeles with his wife, Lucía, and teenage son, Lorenzo. His work has become increasingly personal and subjective as he has grown older; his latest film, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, is a work of docufiction with autobiographical elements. Silverio and Lucía are happy together, but they are haunted by the death of their first son, Mateo, a day after his birth. The two keep Mateo's ashes and feel unable to move on from his loss. Silverio experiences much of his day-to-day life in surreal fashion, with dreams, memories, and fantasies playing out alongside his activities. When he meets the US ambassador to Mexico at Chapultepec Castle, for instance, he envisions the events of the 1847 Battle of Chapultepec and the suicides of the Niños Héroes around him.

Silverio learns that he will be the first Latin American to receive a prestigious American award for journalism. He speculates that he is only receiving the award to ease tensions between the United States and Mexico (inflamed by negative perceptions of U.S.–Mexico migration as well as Amazon's attempts to purchase the Mexican state of Baja California), but nevertheless tries to deal with a wave of media scrutiny in his home country. He cancels an interview on a popular talk show at the last minute, reminisces about his time as a husband and father, and tries to strike a balance between attacking the problems he sees with the Mexican state and defending its people from stereotypes. Secretly, he feels guilty over emigrating to the U.S. when so many other Mexicans cannot leave.

Silverio and his family attend a party held in his honor. He reunites with his siblings and extended family, to whom he is indifferent, and his adult daughter, Camila, whom he lavishes with attention. When the talk show host scathingly criticizes Silverio's work, the filmmaker responds by insulting the host personally. Silverio eventually flees into the restroom, where he imagines reconciliations with his deceased father and mother. When he leaves his mother's apartment, he sees symbolic representations of historic atrocities in Mexico: hundreds of people signifying those kidnapped or killed by organized crime collapse in a commercial district, and Hernán Cortés sits atop a pile of corpses in the Zócalo, lecturing Silverio about the indigenous genocide.

Before travelling back to Los Angeles, Silverio and his family vacation in Baja California, just as Amazon buys the state. Camila tells Silverio that she will quit her job in Boston to move back to Mexico, which Silverio tentatively welcomes. The family decide to scatter Mateo's ashes in the ocean before leaving for the U.S., where they are treated with contempt by a Hispanic-American customs official.

After Lorenzo reminds him of a time when his pet axolotls died, Silverio buys some as a surprise gift. On the L.A. Metro ride from the pet store (in a repeat of an earlier scene), Silverio has a violent stroke and is left unattended on the train for several hours. He languishes in a coma, and it is revealed that the events of the film so far have been his comatose brain's attempts to process his life experience. Camila accepts the award in Silverio's absence, and she and his other family members and friends sit by his bedside, holding conversations and playing songs or television broadcasts that have inadvertently affected his dreams.

In a near-featureless desert within his mind, Silverio reunites with his dead family members and ignores projections of his living family. He sees a copy of himself, which mirrors his movements for a short time before walking away. The film ends as it began, with Silverio imagining himself flying through the desert. It is unclear if he has died, reawakened, or learned to live with his baggage.

Cast

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Production

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Development

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On March 22, 2020, it was reported that Alejandro G. Iñárritu would write, direct and produce a new film, to be shot in Mexico, Bradford Young as cinematographer, and Patrice Vermette as production designer.[4] On March 9, 2021, Griselda Siciliani joined the cast,[5] with Grantham Coleman that July.[6]

Filming

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Principal photography began on March 3, 2021, in Mexico City, with Darius Khondji as cinematographer and Eugenio Caballero as production designer, under the working title Limbo.[7] Khondji paired the large format Alexa 65 camera with Panavision Sphero lenses, shooting almost the entirety of the film on the 17mm and the 21mm.[8] Five months of filming were planned in other locations in the Capital and the Estudios Churubusco.[9][10][11]

On March 4, 2021, during filming in the historic center of Mexico City, a passerby was arrested for striking a production security member.[12] In September 2021, it was reported that the film had completed production.[2]

Post-production

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Iñárritu continued editing the film after its premiere at Venice. The version screened at San Sebastián, in late September 2022, had a running time of 152 minutes, without credits, 22 minutes shorter than the one screened at Venice and Telluride.[13] The final runtime released by Netflix was set at 160 minutes including the credits.[14]

Release

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Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2022,[15] it was screened for the first time in the US at the 49th Telluride Film Festival. The film was also screened at the 70th San Sebastián International Film Festival, in late September, and at the 2022 AFI Fest, in late November.[16]

It was released in theaters in Mexico on October 27, 2022, then a limited release in United States theatres on November 4 and on Netflix on December 16.[17][18][19]

Reception

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Critical reception

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The film has received polarized reviews from critics, who praised the performances of Giménez Cacho and Siciliani, Khondji's cinematography, and Iñarritu's direction, but criticized the runtime and writing; many referred to the film as "self-indulgent" and "pretentious". On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 60% of 167 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "As deeply personal as it is demanding, Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths unsteadily walks the line between brilliance and sheer self-indulgence."[20] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 55 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[21]

In an interview with Los Angeles Times, Iñárritu believed there was a racial bias among the critics and stated that a filmmaker's expressions of themselves shouldn't be considered as self-indulgent or emulating other thematically related works.[22]

Accolades

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Award Date of ceremony Category Recipient(s) Result Ref.
Venice Film Festival September 10, 2022 Golden Lion Alejandro G. Iñárritu Nominated [23]
UNIMED Award Won [24]
The International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography Camerimage November 19, 2022 Main Competition (Silver Frog) Darius Khondji Won [25]
FIPRESCI Award Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths Won
Chicago Film Critics Association December 14, 2022 Best Foreign Language Film Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths Nominated [26]
Best Cinematography Darius Khondji Nominated
Alliance of Women Film Journalists January 5, 2023 Best Non-English Language Film Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths Nominated [27]
Georgia Film Critics Association January 13, 2023 Best Cinematography Darius Khondji Nominated [28]
Critics' Choice Movie Awards January 15, 2023 Best Foreign Language Film Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths Nominated [29]
AARP Movies for Grownups Awards January 28, 2023 Best Foreign Film Nominated [30]
Satellite Awards February 11, 2023 Best Motion Picture – International Nominated [31]
Set Decorators Society of America Awards February 14, 2023 Best Achievement in Decor/Design of a Contemporary Feature Film Daniela Rojas Mont and Eugenio Caballero Nominated [32]
Art Directors Guild Awards February 18, 2023 Excellence in Production Design for a Contemporary Film Eugenio Caballero Nominated [33]
Golden Reel Awards February 26, 2023 Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Foreign Language Feature Martín Hernández, Nicolas Becker, Ken Yasumoto, Alejandro Quevedo, Jaime Sainz, Carolina Santana, Alitzel Diaz, Daniel Douglass, Valeria López Mancheva, Raynier Hinojosa, Omar Blanco, Oscar Victoria, Pietu Korhonen, Alan Romero, Heikki Kossi, Alan Romero Nominated [34]
American Society of Cinematographers Awards March 5, 2023 Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases Darius Khondji Nominated [35]
Academy Awards March 12, 2023 Best Cinematography Nominated [36]
Platino Awards April 22, 2023 Best Ibero-American Film Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths Nominated [37]
Best Comedy Film Nominated
Best Director Alejandro González Iñarritu Nominated
Best Actor Daniel Giménez Cacho Nominated
Best Screenplay Alejandro González Iñarritu, Nicolás Giacobone Nominated
Best Art Direction Eugenio Caballero Nominated
Golden Trailer Awards June 29, 2023 Best Foreign Trailer "Journey" (AV Squad) Nominated [38]
Ariel Awards September 9, 2023 Best Picture Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths Nominated [39][40]
Best Director Alejandro González Iñárritu Won
Best Actor Daniel Giménez Cacho Won
Best Supporting Actor Francisco Rubio Nominated
Best Cinematography Darius Khondji Won
Best Original Score Bryce Dessner, Alejandro G. Iñárritu Nominated
Best Sound Nicolas Becker, Martín Hernández, Ken Yasumoto, Frankie Montano, Jon Taylor, Santiago Núñez Won
Best Editing Alejandro G. Iñárritu Won
Best Art Direction Eugenio Caballero Won
Best Makeup Lucy Betancourt Nominated
Best Costume Design Anna Terrazas Won
Best Visual Effects Guillaume Rocheron, Olaf Wendt Won
Rolling Stone en Español Awards October 26, 2023 Fiction Feature Film of the Year Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths Nominated [41][42]
Direction of the Year Alejandro González Iñárritu Won
Performance of the Year Daniel Giménez Cacho Nominated

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (2022) - Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved March 17, 2024.
  2. ^ a b Grobar, Matt (September 23, 2021). "Alejandro G. Iñárritu's New Comedy Gets Title; Oscar Winner's First Project In His Native Mexico Since 'Amores Perros'". Deadline. Archived from the original on September 23, 2021. Retrieved September 23, 2021.
  3. ^ Scott, A. O. (November 3, 2022). "'Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths' Review: It's a Stressful Afterlife". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on February 20, 2023. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
  4. ^ Fisher, Jacob (March 22, 2020). "Alejandro G. Iñárritu Set To Write & Direct New Film With Bradford Young & Patrice Vermette". Discussing Film. Archived from the original on September 3, 2022. Retrieved April 14, 2020.
  5. ^ Huerta, Cesar (March 9, 2021). "Iñárritu trae "Cortitos" a Griselda Siciliani y a Giménez Cacho". El Universal (in Mexican Spanish). Archived from the original on March 27, 2022. Retrieved March 9, 2021.
  6. ^ Kroll, Justin (July 29, 2021). "Grantham Coleman Joins Cast Of Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu's Next Movie". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on October 16, 2022. Retrieved July 29, 2021.
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  30. ^ Appelo, Tim (December 15, 2022). "Announcing AARP's 2023 Movies for Grownups Awards Nominees". AARP. Archived from the original on December 17, 2022. Retrieved January 29, 2023.
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  33. ^ Tangcay, Jazz (January 9, 2023). "'Elvis,' 'Babylon,' 'Avatar: The Way of Water' Lead Art Directors Guild 2023 Nominations". Variety. Archived from the original on January 9, 2023. Retrieved January 9, 2023.
  34. ^ Giardina, Carolyn (January 9, 2023). "'Everything Everywhere All At Once' Leads Sound Editors' Golden Reel Nominations". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on January 9, 2023. Retrieved January 9, 2023.
  35. ^ Tangcay, Jazz (January 9, 2023). "'The Batman,' 'Top Gun: Maverick,' 'Elvis' Nominated by American Society of Cinematographers". Variety. Archived from the original on January 10, 2023. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  36. ^ "The 95th Academy Awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on January 30, 2022. Retrieved January 29, 2023.
  37. ^ Rosado, Ricardo (March 9, 2023). "PREMIOS PLATINO 2023: 'ARGENTINA, 1985' ENCABEZA LAS NOMINACIONES DE LA X EDICIÓN". Fotogramas (in Spanish). Archived from the original on March 11, 2023. Retrieved March 9, 2023.
  38. ^ Tinoco, Armando (June 5, 2023). "Golden Trailer Awards Nominations List: Stranger Things, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ted Lasso & Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery Among Most Nominated". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on June 5, 2023. Retrieved June 6, 2023.
  39. ^ Hernández, Xhanat (June 20, 2023). "Conoce los nominados de los Premios Ariel 2023". Publimetro. Archived from the original on June 22, 2023. Retrieved July 20, 2023.
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  42. ^ "Conoce la lista completa de ganadores de los premios RSEE". Rolling Stone en Español. October 30, 2023.
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