Obviously, Alejandro G. Iñárritu had some feelings to process.
The Mexican-born Iñárritu is the brilliant director of multiple acclaimed films, the two most recent of which are 2014's Academy Award-winning "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)" and the following year's "The Revenant." His credits also include "21 Grams" (2003), "Babel" (2006) and "Biutiful" (2010).
At last, Iñárritu has returned with "Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths," an ever-impressive but also often frustrating meditation on the experience of leaving one land for another.
Already in select theaters, "Bardo" debuts on Netflix this week and is well worth a watch, as challenging as that watch may prove to be.
Although not strictly autobiographical, "Bardo" is a deeply personal film for Iñárritu — and the first he has shot in his native country since the movie that brought him worldwide renown, 2000's "Amores Perros," his feature debut.
Primarily told in Spanish with English subtitles, "Bardo" is fantastical and metaphorical, its protagonist existing in a world that at times feels deeply rooted in reality and at others highly dreamlike. (A term from Tibetan Buddhism, the bardo is a state between death and rebirth.)
That lead character is Silverio (a steady Daniel Giménez Cacho of "Get the Gringo"), a Mexican journalist and documentary filmmaker who has spent the last two decades living in Los Angeles. He is named the recipient of a prestigious international award, which spurs a return trip to Mexico, which allows for an existential journey through memories, fears, thoughts about Mexico's past and present and more.
After an inventive — if initially head-scratching — opening sequence that serves the film's overall theme, "Bardo" introduces Silverio, sitting against a wall in the hallway of a hospital. Inside a nearby room, his wife, Lucia (Griselda Siciliani), is giving birth to their son.
After examining the child, the doctor informs her the infant wants to go back inside her.
"He says the world is too [expletive] up," the doctor confides before, yes, inserting him back into Lucia.
This won't be the last jaw-dropping imagery in "Bardo" or, in fact, the last involving the boy, Mateo, whom we later learn lived only 30 hours. (Yes, like Silverio, Iñárritu once lost a child.)
Silverio and Lucia are the parents of two other children, Lorenzo (Íker Solano), who lives with them in California, and the grown Camila (Ximena Lamadrid), who resides in Boston. He engages in very different arguments with each of them about Mexico.
Silverio's quality as a father is very much on his mind, as is his career, thanks to the aforementioned award. He worries he is a fraud — and that everyone knows it — a thought manifested in an imagined appearance on a talk show that, in reality, he skips. A subsequent confrontation with the show's furious host (Francisco Rubio) is equally impactful.
Bardo also takes the viewer to wildly unexpected places, such as a conversation Silverio has with Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés atop a pile of bodies after the former takes an overdue stroll through present-day Mexico City.
Intentionally absurd, "Bardo" also could be called self-indulgent — especially at more than two and a half hours. Whatever it is, it's a lot.
However, so much of it — thanks in no small part to the work of Oscar-nominated cinematographer Darius Khondji ("Amour," "Se7en") and production designer Eugenio Caballero ("ROMA," "Pan's Labyrinth") — is, if nothing else, visually engrossing.
When you break it down, "Bardo" is a lengthy parade of vignettes, some of which will mean more to certain viewers than others. While many of us perhaps can relate to a scene in which Silverio has a conversation with his late father, during which the journalist shrinks to the size of a child, Silverio's upsetting encounter with an airport employee may not land for those without certain life experiences possessed by Iñárritu and myriad others not originally from the United States.
A film that almost certainly requires a second viewing, "Bardo" also should perhaps be absorbed in chunks.
As lovely, powerful and thought-provoking as it can be, it also can be exhausting.
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'BARDO, FALSE CHRONICLE OF A HANDFUL OF TRUTHS'
3 stars (out of 4)
Rating: R (for language throughout, strong sexual content and graphic nudity)
Running time: 2:39
How to watch: On Netflix Friday
