Sprawling, story-less, Fellini-esque, strikingly conceived (to put it mildly) and somberly meditative, Alejandro G. Inarritu‘s Bardo (or False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths), which I saw last night at 9 pm, is one motherfucker of an older man’s interior dream-trip epic.

Because it’s basically a series of Tony Soprano-ish dream segments, or so it digressively seemed to me…flicked with foreboding and dread and yet darkly amusing. And there’s no way Bardo qualifies as a comedy, by the way…glumly satiric is a better description.

And yet you can’t say that Bardo isn’t delicious — “intermittently brilliant” is how a friend put it — in terms of all the visual seductions and titillations and wild-ass whatevers. It’s a feverishly imaginative, inwardly-focused, interior-dialogue art film that never once shakes hands or even acknowledges the mundane aspects of life as most of us know or perceive them. It’s a dream-realm thing, top to bottom and into the vortex.

“Bardo” is a Buddhist term that means “transitional state between death and rebirth.” Hence the dream-stream.

Understand that the dreams of Silverio Gama (Daniel Giménez Cacho), a 50ish hotshot Mexican journalist and documentarian who, like Inarritu, has been living and thriving in Los Angeles with his family for the last 20-plus years…understand that Silverio’s dreams are somewhat darker and certainly more grandiose in a social-indictment sense than the more personalized and modestly-scaled dream sequences cooked up by Sopranos creator David Chase.

Inarritu’s dream trips are more imaginatively complex and cliff-jumpy and (here’s where the indulgent Netflix syndrome kicks in) big-budgety. All kinds of fragments and fantasies and social metaphors and projections of this or that, but most of it boiling down to “who am I and what am I doing?” as well as “fuck all the predators and cheapeners of this planetary existence that we’re all sharing” as well as an occasional “fuck me”.

There’s no debating the instant assessment that came out of the Venice Film Festival, which is that Bardo is Inarritu’s 8 1/2. There are other films in this self-examining, “I’m pissed off because I’m getting old and have run out of fresh ideas” fraternity — Bob Fosse‘s All That Jazz, Woody Allen‘s Stardust Memories, Paul Mazursky‘s Alex in Wonderland and (I’ll bet no one’s mentioned this one) Blade Edwards‘ That’s Life! (’86).

Seriously — the Wiki synopsis of That’s Life! is 90% Bardo: “Harvey Fairchild is a wealthy, Malibu-based architect who is turning 60 and suffering from a form of male menopause. He feels aches and pains, real or imaginary, and seems unhappy with his professional and personal life.”

Bardo often delivers the same kind of long and occasionally mystifying head-trip cards (“intermittently brilliant” means now and then) that 8 1/2 does, but it’s also warmer and more family-embracing at times. (I was especially taken with Griselda Siciliani‘s performance as Silvero’s middle-aged wife.) Stardust Memories is tighter and more entertaining. It’s deeper and stranger than Alex in Wonderland. Portions of All That Jazz struck me as more filling and exciting and urgent than Bardo, I have to say. It’s better than Edwards’ film — I’ll definitely give it that.

And yet portions of Bardo are glorious. I loved certain scenes so much that I didn’t want Inarritu to cut away. The opening desert sequence (a shadow running and leaping and flying, and then falling back to earth) is a wow. There’s a magnificent dance-party sequence that goes on for I-don’t-know-how-long, but it’s so exuberant and crazy-good I got lost in it. Not to mention a sexual episode here and there that did the trick. Not to mention a knockout battle sequence + piles and piles of dead bodies.

I feel as badly as the next guy about the wounds suffered by Netflix in Venice — the stunning 53% Metacritic grade for Alejandro G. Inarritu’s Bardo (which I’ll be seeing tonight) + the meh reception to Noah Baumbach’s White Noise.

Speaking as a staunch Inarritu fan over the last 22 years, it is my intention to be as fair and merciless and forgiving and open-veined as possible. “Too long” doesn’t bother me if the filmmaker is imbued or on fire. Inarritu is incapable of mediocrity.

Bones and All star Timothee Chalamet speaking to Variety‘s Nick Vivarelli on Venice red carpet: “To be young today…I can’t imagine what it is to grow up without the onslaught of social media. And at least here [in Bones] there are characters wrestling with internal blood lines [as opposed to struggling with] growing up with Instagram or Twitter…trying to figure out where they fit in with that.”

HE: I’m sorry and no offense but what’s Timothee saying? I for one would be horrified to be time-tripped back to the ’80s and the life of a cannibal. Thank God for the daily feed of social media streams, and of course HE’s contribution to that.

Chalamet: “I’m not casting judgement. You can find your tribe there.” But “it’s hard to be alive now. I think societal collapse is in the air. That’s why hopefully this movie will matter.”

Societal collapse because of the Trump faithful and the unfortunate likelihood of more random shootings (some politically motivated) and the probability of some form of civil war between bumblefucks and wokesters, he means….right?

9.2, 6:50 am: After 14 or 15 hours of somewhat uncomfortable travelling (including five hours on the carpeted floor at Washington National), HE pulled into Telluride yesterday afternoon around 4:15 pm.

What happened next was beyond thrilling. First the unpacking (I’m bunking at a spacious three-bedroom condo with Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone), then a little shopping, then a 40-minute nap and finally an elegant dinner at La Marmotte, hosted by Santa Barbara Film Festival honcho and birthday boy Roger Durling.

Yes, that’s THR‘s Scott Feinberg to Roger’s right. The trio on the opposite side of the table (l. to r.) are Amazon’s Justin Balsamo, Netflix’s Kelly Dalton and IMAX’s Julie Fontaine.

What unannounced film will be shown at this afternoon’s Patrons screening at the Herzog? How can it not be Todd Fields‘ Tar, the film that everyone is dying to see after the unanimous Venice raves? The people want, demand…okay, they’re pleading for this.

I’ve never before stayed in a Telluride condo with a breathtaking view of the mountains; now I have.

Picking up the pass in an hour or so, and then the bus to the Telluride brunch. Three films today — the unannounced Patron’s screening around 2:30 or so, a 6 pm Sarah Polley tribute + screening of Women Talking, and finally Alejandro G.Inarritu‘s Bardo at 8:45 pm.

Shelley Winters once said of Marilyn Monroe, with whom she had roomed, “If she’d been a little less smart, she might have been happier.”

By the same token, it can be surmised that a fair number of dumber (or less smart) people are interested in seeing Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry, Darling.

Okay, they’re not so much dumb as not especially attuned or curious, and so they don’t care about Wilde schtupping Harry Styles during filming or Styles getting paid more than Florence Pugh or any of that stuff. Simple folk, common clay, etc. Movie, darkened theatre, comfy seat, popcorn…done.