Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Bardon My Existence - Bardo, A Chronicle of a Handful of Truths film review

A week ago an acquaintance explained the concept of bardo to me after I showed him the trailer to this film. I was hitherto unfamiliar with the term before this. I also stopped listening to his lengthy and winded exposition, one because I got bored, but two because I feared it might ruin my movie going experience.

Personally, I feel the less you know about the Buddhist theory going into Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s latest effort, the more enjoyable and mindfuckingly good it will be to experience. That said, when the end of the film came I remembered what that acquaintance had been blabbering about and it made the previous 159 minutes make a bit more sense.

Whether you go into it with ignorance or armed with basic Buddhist bravado, Bardo is a visual feast best viewed on the largest screen possible. It is a whirlwind story about life, death, identity, art, commerce, social media, memory, the past, the present, commerce, history, elitism, genocide, racism, as well as being an arty rumination on mid-life crises. It’s also a wonderfully giant puzzle with myriad pieces floating around and around, that when they finally find their place make for a richly layered story worth repeated viewing.


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