‘IN EVERY FILM THAT I HAVE DONE, THE MISTAKES ARE MINE. I ALWAYS TOOK THE LAST DECISIONS.’
On the first floor of the Corinthia Hotel, it's the third day of the London Film Festival and there are already harassed-looking PRs and journalists marching down the corridor. Then one man saunters around the corner, dressed casually in a navy donkey jacket and ragged grey trousers, with patches of red material across the knees. Alejandro González Iñárritu is 25 minutes late for our encounter. Not because he's tardy but simply because he likes to talk… and talk, and talk.
The Mexican director is back with his new film, and he's got a lot to say. Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths, to trot out its full title, is epic in scale, but deeply personal in nature. After winning four Oscars across his previous two films – his miraculous one-shot movie Birdman and gruelling trapper saga The Revenant – it's the sort of ballsy movie you might expect from a risk-taker like Iñárritu.
The story follows Mexican documentarian and journalist Silverio (Zama's Daniel Giménez Cacho), a married father-of-two about to be feted with a major award in America when he undergoes a major existential crisis. Is this a self-portrait? Certainly, much like his character, Iñárritu has straddled both Los Angeles and Mexico City these past two decades, after his Bafta-winning debut Amores Perros (2000) put him on the map.
Since then, much like his compatriots Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón, Iñárritu has increasingly worked with A-List stars: Sean Penn in 21 Grams (2003), Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in Babel (2006), Javier Bardem in Biutiful (2010). But it wasn't until he revitalised Michael Keaton's career in Birdman, casting him as a fading actor famed for a one-time superhero role, that he was fully embraced by Hollywood.
It's undoubtedly a long road travelled since his early years, growing up in Mexico City. A poor student, he was expelled and later travelled to Europe before returning to study communications. Jobs in radio and television followed, while he even composed music for other Mexican movies. But it was only when he met Guillermo Arriaga, who wrote Iñárritu's first three features, that his career took off.
Now 59, he's clearly poured his feelings towards his success into , a surreal, introspective slice from a technical standpoint (from a full-on US-Mex border crossing to a Jodorowsky-esque mountain of dead bodies that Silverio climbs). Dealing with issues of immigration, identity, and male crisis – all themes explored in his past work – it's been compared to Fellini's , which also depicted a filmmaker unravelling. Some critics scorned when it premiered in Venice for its self-indulgence, but Iñárritu is making no apologies when he sits down with .
