{"id":3256,"date":"2023-07-04T19:18:23","date_gmt":"2023-07-04T19:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/?p=3256"},"modified":"2023-07-05T09:20:43","modified_gmt":"2023-07-05T09:20:43","slug":"against-coloniality-in-anglophone-film-criticism-bardo-false-chronicles-of-a-handful-of-truths-bardo-falsa-cronica-de-unas-cuantas-verdades-alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/2023\/07\/04\/against-coloniality-in-anglophone-film-criticism-bardo-false-chronicles-of-a-handful-of-truths-bardo-falsa-cronica-de-unas-cuantas-verdades-alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Against (Coloniality in) Anglophone Film Criticism: Bardo, False Chronicles of a Handful of Truths\/Bardo, falsa cr\u00f3nica de unas cuantas verdades (Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu, 2022)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Today at Medi\u00e1tico, for once, we are not, delighted. We are deeply sad at the loss of the great Ana M. L\u00f3pez, who was very possibly one of the brightest shining stars in our field, and also a deeply wonderful human being who we were lucky to have known.  It\u2019s been hard to carry on the tasks of everyday academia these past weeks knowing that she is not in the world to be part of the conversation. But, as one collaborator said to me just a week or so ago, \u201cWe do the work to honour her\u201d. Today then, in the spirit of honouring Ana, we present a metacritical post, about anglophone film criticism and Latin American cinema. It is also fitting that we should publish a metacritical work this week because Ana was, in addition to media historian and archaeologist, a sharp metacritical writer, mapping the field of Latin American film studies across multiple essays (1985, 1988, 1991, 1998, 2012). This post is, therefore, for you Ana.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lCQimQfDuTs?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Against (Coloniality in) Anglophone Film Criticism: <em>Bardo<\/em>, <em>False Chronicles of a Handful of Truths\/Bardo, falsa cr\u00f3nica de unas cuantas verdades <\/em>(Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu, 2022)<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>by Dolores Tierney<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When <em>Bardo<\/em>, <em>False Chronicles of a Handful of Truths\/Bardo, falsa cr\u00f3nica de unas cuantas verdades <\/em>(Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu, 2022) was released last year, it was wrongly labelled as magic realist or magical realist by multiple film critics. To understand why so many anglophone critics labelled the film that way, we must interrogate (a certain kind of) anglophone film criticism, most often but not always, written by white male critics from the Global North, about films and filmmakers from the Global South.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anglophone film criticism can be, unsurprisingly, colonialist. <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/346830647\">Jeff Middents <\/a>has noted its coloniality in his excellent video essay about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=uf_XmXuNN0I\"><em>Aloft\/No llores, vuela<\/em><\/a><em> <\/em>(Claudia Llosa, 2014) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.anothergaze.com\/elena-gorfinkel-manifesto-against-lists\/\">Elena Gorfinkel<\/a><a id=\"_ednref1\" href=\"#_edn1\"><u>[i]<\/u><\/a> has also railed against anglophone film criticism, in her masterful manifesto \u201cAgainst Lists.\u201d Medi\u00e1tico\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/2018\/12\/24\/introduction-to-the-special-dossier-on-roma-alfonso-cuaron\/\">Special Dossier<\/a> on <em>Roma <\/em>(Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n, 2018) also pointed out the \u201ccoloniality\u201d of some Global North perspectives on Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s Oscar winning film (Quijano 2007).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The National Auteur \u201cGoes World\u201d: Claudia Llosa and the Critical Responses to Aloft\/No llores,vuela\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/346830647?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"470\" height=\"201\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMagical realist\u201d is just one of the worn-out, and wrongly applied, area-based tropes anglophone criticism often uses to describe anything Latin American that is fantasy based, including other I\u00f1\u00e1rritu films like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=uJfLoE6hanc\"><em>Birdman or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance<\/em><\/a> (2014) or those directed by his compatriot Guillermo del Toro, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?rlz=1C5CHFA_enGB893GB896&amp;sxsrf=APwXEdcxpuKchBXjmcTbJs2Netb0GUA6Gg:1687272796424&amp;q=Pan%27s+Labyrinth&amp;tbm=vid&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjc2q39jNL_AhVgQkEAHeOrCrYQ0pQJegQIDBAB&amp;biw=1400&amp;bih=705&amp;dpr=2#fpstate=ive&amp;vld=cid:e63b4864,vid:4Evmr2ZCjWc\"><em>El laberinto del fauno<\/em>\/<em>Pan\u2019s Labyrinth<\/em><\/a><em> <\/em>(2006)<em>,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This kind of criticism is rarely fluent in the cultures and languages of the films it reviews. Anglophone criticism calls <em>Bardo <\/em>annoying and self-gratifying but applauds Global North directors who make similarly metafictional, autobiographical films for breaking that fourth wall and mining their own life experiences and traumas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YB3PFJODRC8?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;start=3&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Bardo<\/em>\u2019s perplexing scenarios cannot add up to magical realism because the film lacks the base line of what is also needed for magical realism to exist; a textually determined, matter of fact, real or realist register, out of which the magic can emerge. Everything in <em>Bardo<\/em> is dreamlike, surreal and heightened. None of the action is signalled as quotidian or prosaic. What we see, and importantly hear, in the film is not magical but \u2014spoiler alert\u2014 the product of its protagonist Silverio\u2019s (Daniel Gim\u00e9nez Cacho) dying mind. As he lies in a coma, his unconscious is replaying his memories, his films and the criticisms of his work and mixing them with the aural stimuli of what is going on in the room around his bed \u2014a television news report from the worker who found a man (him) having a stroke on the train, his wife at his bedside talking to him, the voices of his brothers and sisters arriving to say goodbye, and even the beeps and wheezes of the medical machinery- to produce an imagined return to Mexico. It is this narrative of return that forms a major part of the film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Bardo<\/em>\u2019s action is not magical realist because none of what we see in the film is signalled as <em>real <\/em>(the clue really is in the film\u2019s full title)<em>.<\/em> Admittedly, there are seemingly \u201cmagical\u201d things in <em>Bardo<\/em>, including a man we see only as a shadow flying over the desert, a flooded Los Angeles Metro Rail with axolotls swimming about, a new-born baby expressing the desire to go, and then actually going, back into his mother\u2019s womb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This mistake about magical realism is not exclusive to film criticism. The term\u2019s application to <em>Bardo <\/em>is indicative of the colonialist tropes about Latin America which the Global North frequently reproduces. In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CaimKeDcudo\"><em>Encanto<\/em><\/a> (Bryan Howard and Jared Bush 2021) for instance, Disney, produces a <em>One Hundred Years of Solitude<\/em>-like family saga that includes such features of Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s 1967 novel as a sprawling house, yellow butterflies, and a tropical Colombian backdrop. <em>Encanto<\/em>\u2019s writers and directors think that by applying a Latin American mode to the Disney style, they are being culturally authentic, but, like film critics writing about <em>Bardo<\/em> and, as explored in <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/encanto-2021-with-dolores-tierney\/id1432582889?i=1000556177735\">this podcast<\/a>, Disney gets magical realism all wrong (Figure1).<a id=\"_ednref1\" href=\"#_edn1\">[ii]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2023\/06\/Encanto-1024x576.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3261\" width=\"842\" height=\"473\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2023\/06\/Encanto-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2023\/06\/Encanto-300x169.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2023\/06\/Encanto-768x432.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2023\/06\/Encanto.jpeg 1298w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 842px) 100vw, 842px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Figure 1: The Family Madrigal (<em>Encanto<\/em>, Bryan Howard and Jared Bush 2021)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Film critic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/bardo-movie-review-alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu-false-chronicle-handful-truths-netflix\/\">Carlos Aguilar\u2019s<\/a> account of <em>Bardo<\/em>, for American multimedia platform <em>TheWrap<\/em>,on the other hand, is a model of what we should expect from film criticism about the Global South. Aguilar knowledgeably notes <em>Bardo<\/em>\u2019s dream qualities and logic and how, rather than indulging I\u00f1\u00e1rritu, the film lays bare the director\u2019s self-criticism and insecurities. Most importantly Aguilar notes <em>Bardo<\/em>\u2019s engagement with Mexican colonial history and politics and how the film foregrounds the people who have been disappeared and murdered because of years of narco and state-enabled violence. Aguilar also notes the relationship between <em>Bardo<\/em> and I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u2019s previous works dealing with issues of immigration and violence at the Mexico\/United States border: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yDNa6t-TDrQ\"><em>Babel<\/em><\/a><em> <\/em>(2006) and his virtual reality installation <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zF-focK30WE\"><em>Carne y arena (Virtually Present, Physically Invisible)<\/em><\/a><em> <\/em>(2017).<a id=\"_ednref1\" href=\"#_edn1\">[iii]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Film critics are compelled to review a lot of films in a short space of time and submit their review copy according to strict deadlines. Unlike longer form film journalists and academics they don\u2019t have the time to weigh their words. With a lot of Latin American films, and under such time constraints, they seem to often revert to the same old culturally biased assumptions about films and filmmakers from the Global South.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Honouring the legacy of Ana M. L\u00f3pez, a great and loving mentor, I call for a greater awareness on the part of film critics of our own positionality, and of the privileged, geo-cultural, classed, and raced positions from which we write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To avoid coloniality in film criticism of the Global North about films and filmmakers from the Global South, we as film critics and film criticism more broadly needs to do better. We need more informed critics and editors and a more diverse pool of film critics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>List of Work Cited<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gorfinkel, Elena (2019) \u201cAgainst Lists\u201d <em>Another Gaze<\/em> Essays Nov 29, Accessed at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.anothergaze.com\/elena-gorfinkel-manifesto-against-lists\/\">https:\/\/www.anothergaze.com\/elena-gorfinkel-manifesto-against-lists\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Leen, Catherine (2021) \u201cVisceral Reality in Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u2019s <em>Carne y Arena <\/em>(<em>Virtually Present, Physically Invisible)<\/em>\u201d <em>Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas<\/em> 18.1, 37\u201355.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>L\u00f3pez, Ana M. (1985) \u201cA Short History of Latin American Film Histories.\u201d<em> UFVA Journal <\/em>37, 1: 55\u201369.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>L\u00f3pez, Ana M. (1988). \u201cAn \u2018Other\u2019 History: The New Latin American Cinema.\u201d <em>Radical History Review <\/em>41 (Spring): 93\u2013116.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>L\u00f3pez, Ana M. (1991) \u201cSetting Up the Stage: A Decade of Latin American Film Scholarship<em>.\u201d Quarterly Review of Film and Video <\/em>13: 239\u201360.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>L\u00f3pez, Ana M. (1998). \u201cHistoria nacional, historia transnacional.\u201d In<em> Horizontes del segundo siglo: Investigaci\u00f3n y pedagog\u00eda del cine mexicano, latinoamericano y chicano, <\/em>edited by Patricia Torres San Mart.n, Julianne Burton, and Angel Miquel, 75\u201381. Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara\/IMCINE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>L\u00f3pez, Ana M. (2012). \u201cPalabras Liminales.\u201d In<em> Hollywood, Nuestra Am\u00e9rica y los Latinos, <\/em>5\u201310. Havana: Ediciones Uni\u00f3n.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Middents, Jeff (2019) \u2018The National Auteur \u201cGoes World\u201d: Claudia Llosa and the Critical Responses to <em>Aloft\/No llores,vuela <\/em>(Claudia Llosa, 2014)\u2019 <em>Tecmerin: Journal of Audio Visual Essays<\/em> 2(1) Accessed at <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/346830647\">https:\/\/vimeo.com\/346830647<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Quijano, A. (2007) \u201cColoniality and Modernity\/Rationality\u201d <em>Cultural Studies<\/em>, 21, 2, 168\u2013178.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p><a id=\"_edn1\" href=\"#_ednref1\">[i]<\/a> &#8220;Lists won\u2019t create new canons \u2013 especially not of lost women, queer, trans, Black, Latinx, global south, decolonial and anti-colonial filmmakers<br>Who will ask Barbara Hammer, Kathleen Collins, Kira Muratova and Sara G\u00f3mez for <em>their <\/em>lists&#8221; (Gorfinkel, 2019)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a id=\"_edn1\" href=\"#_ednref1\">[ii]<\/a> It\u2019s worth noting that the blanket application of magical realism to anything Latin American by film criticism, and Disney is a way of disavowing the cultural specificities and histories of a whole continent as \u201cjust that magical space down there\u201d whilst, in reality, magical realism, as it\u2019s conceived by Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez, is a fiercely political mode that was partly about acknowledging the complexities and absurdities of everyday life in a country deformed and brutalized by neo colonialist extractivist practices and violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a id=\"_edn1\" href=\"#_ednref1\">[iii]<\/a> For a wonderful exploration of <em>Carne y Arena<\/em> see Catherine Leen (2021)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today at Medi\u00e1tico, for once, we are not, delighted. We are deeply sad at the loss of the great Ana&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":3258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"everybody","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[419,317,260,422,421],"class_list":["post-3256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-bardo","tag-coloniality","tag-film-criticism","tag-inarritu-2","tag-magical-realism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2023\/06\/convivio-bardo-1900.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p49QSj-Qw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3256"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3303,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3256\/revisions\/3303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}