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Ahead of its wide theatrical release in Mexico, Netflix dropped a new trailer for 5-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu's latest feature Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths. The new trailer reveals a bit more of the film's narrative through dialogue, though it's still every bit as trippy as the previously released trailer. We're still traversing Iñárritu's surrealist sequences, but this clip expands more on the overall tone of this two-and-a-half hour existential epic.
From the director of the Oscar-winning films Birdman and The Revenant comes something entirely and bizarrely unique from his past works. Co-written by Nicolás Giacobone with Iñárritu, Bardo seems to be Iñárritu's odyssey of his own psyche as it follows Silverio Gacho (Daniel Giménez Cacho), a celebrated Mexican journalist and documentarian who's lived in Los Angeles for over two decades. After receiving a prestigious award, Silverio returns home to Mexico where he finds himself in a sort of fish-out-of-water experience, no longer feeling a stable sense of belonging. This psychological dilemma plunges Silverio and the audience into a whimsical and fearful journey through his anxieties.
While the first trailer was essentially a breathtaking music video, this newest sneak-peek provides more of the self-reflection Iñárritu explores within the script. It asks Silverio, "Where are you?" to which he responds, "I don't know," through a montage of ennui-inducing shots that then give way to the absurdity and magical realism that the director utilizes to capture a relatable sense of disorientation. We then descend back into the psychedelic bouts of dissociation wherein Silverio finds himself on autopilot through elaborate stage plays and fanciful productions playing out around him. We see vast expanses of desert, claustrophobic nightclubs and flooded trains, as if the filmmaker's dreamscapes are beginning to bleed into his reality. This trailer reveals more of the overwhelming lack of belonging that Iñárritu's film deals with, as Silverio grapples with his own identity.
Since his Oscar-nominated debut feature in 2000, Amores Perros starring Gael García Bernal, Iñárritu has now helmed a total of seven films. Over the course of his career, the director has worked with a number of A-list names on projects that garnered him an auteur of his craft, including 21 Grams with Sean Penn and Babel starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. Bardo marks Iñárritu's first return to Mexico since Amores, a fact which may lend its inspiration to the film's running theme of belonging and imposter syndrome. While his filmography is often bleak and intense (see The Revenant and Biutiful), Bardo feels a bit more personal, allowing the director to play with humor, albeit in a self-deprecating manor.
The cast is led by Mexican actor Cacho who is joined by Griselda Siciliani as Lucia, Ximena Lamadrid as Camila and Íker Sánchez Solano as Lorenoz. Iñárritu and Stacy Perskie Kaniss serve as producers with Mary Parent and Karla Luna Cantú as executive producers.
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths opens everywhere in theaters in Mexico on October 27th, followed by a limited theatrical release in the US on November 4, and will be available to stream on Netflix December 16. You can watch the trailer below: