With “Bardo, the fictional chronicle of a handful of truths”, four-time (!) Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu delivers his most personal film to date – but instead of three hours, it is now “only” two and a half hours long.
Alejandro González Iñárritu won the Oscar for Best Director for each of his previous two films, “The Revenant” and “Birdman (or the Unexpected Power of Cluelessness)”. In addition, there are other classics such as “Amores Perros”, “21 Grams” and “Babel”. No wonder, then, that every new work by the director-mastermind, who shines above all with ever new film techniques, is eagerly awaited by cinema fans from all over the world.
“Bardo, the Invented Chronicle of a Handful of Truths” is no exception – especially since Iñárritu is following in the footsteps of his Mexican compatriot Alfonso Cuarón in that, like Cuarón, he has now also made a highly personal but therefore no less epic film for Netflix with “Roma”. But then came the world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival – and instead of the usual jubilation, there were suddenly also a lot of restrained to bad reviews.
On the review aggregator RottenTomatoes, “Bardo” currently has a disappointing 53 percent positive rating (with 32 reviews counted so far). This is miles away from its predecessors “The Revenant” (78 percent positive) and “Birdman” (91 percent positive), which were also not entirely uncontroversial due to their focus on technology. Not to mention Cuarón’s “Roma”, which even has 96 percent positive reviews.
Even before the Netflix release of “Bardo” on 18 November 2022, the film, which was 174 minutes long when it premiered in Venice, has now been cut by another 22 minutes to a new length of 152 minutes (because of this?)
WHY THE SUBSEQUENT CUT?
A film is shortened by another 22 minutes after its world premiere, which generated a bunch of reviews that were much more negative on average than expected and also often criticised the epic length. This sounds like a no-brainer: the cut is obviously a direct reaction to the reviews that have appeared …
… but on closer inspection it’s not that clear: Alejandro González Iñárritu has also worked on earlier films like “21 Grams” or “Babel” after the festival premiere and changed/shortened things. He also explains time and again that for him, work on a film is never really finished and there are always things he would like to change – and the time between the first festival screenings and the actual release is of course perfect for this. Especially since “Bardo” was only finished so shortly before the festival that he was not able to show it to friends and family members first, as is usually the case, but was actually able to experience it together with an audience for the first time in Venice.
On the other hand, Iñárritu has definitely noticed the criticisms, after all, he has already commented on them repeatedly in interviews – and it’s hard to imagine that something like this completely rolls off a filmmaker’s back, especially since Iñárritu also addresses his own insecurities in “Bardo”. So the most likely scenario is a mixture: Iñárritu would probably have reworked the film as it was – but the reviews certainly didn’t make it harder for him to cut or even delete one or two scenes.
HOW WE SEE IT
From the FILMSTARTS editorial team, two editors have already been able to see the film at the world premiere on location in Venice – and the 3-hour epic also divided us: While I, FILMSTARTS editor-in-chief Christoph Petersen, was honestly quite annoyed by what I perceived as the pretentious way the film was made (1.5 stars from me), Björn Becher was quite enthusiastic, which is why he also gave the film a strong 4 stars in the official FILMSTARTS review:
But despite our very different views on the film as a whole, even we agreed that it drags quite a bit, especially in the last third. So the 22 minutes that have now been cut could really pull something out of it…
