It seems we re in an interesting phase where seasoned directors are using their platforms to reflect back on their pasts. Alfonso Cuaron did it with "Roma." Last year, Kenneth Branagh did it with "Belfast." Already this year, James Gray has done it with "Armageddon Time" and Spielberg with "The Fabelmans." With "Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths," four-time Oscar winning director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu takes his shot, but not in any conventional sense.
Trimmed by about 24 minutes, the Oscar-winning director's surreal semi-autobiographical fantasia, starring Daniel Giménez Cacho, is worth wrestling with anew.
In "Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths," Alejandro Inarritu has turned within with much zeal to craft a movie memoir. He has grand designs to not just plunge into his own soul but that of Mexico, too. For a filmmaker always pushing for more, "Bardo" is his most ambitious and indulgent film yet.