Review: In 'Bardo,' director Alejandro G. Iñárritu takes us on a tour of Mexico and his demons.

In his latest movie, “Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths,” director Alejandro G. Iñárritu returns to his native Mexico to tell an apparently personal story about family, friends and the overwhelming desire to pick up a camera and capture the world.

Iñárritu’s emotional stand-in here is Silverio (Daniel Giménez Cacho), a former journalist who has become an acclaimed documentarian, one who uses re-enactment and other narrative techniques to crystalize his take on history and other topics. He lives in Los Angeles, but is returning to Mexico to receive a prestigious award — the first Mexican ever to receive the honor.

The award comes not long after his wife, Lucia (Griselda Siciliani), gives birth to their son. While still in the birthing room, though, the baby declares it doesn’t like this broken world and wants to go back into the womb — so the medical staff obligingly stuffs the kid back into Lucia. (We later learn the baby died a day after being born, and Iñárritu’s symbolism comes to represent the dead child as recurring memory.)

Iñárritu and cinematographer Darius Khondji bounce from vignette to vignette, sometimes critiquing Mexico’s history and its relations to the United States, from the Mexican-American war to current migrant crossings. At other times, Silverio encounters the ghost of his own father, who imparts the advice to “Take a swig of success, swish it around and spit it out, otherwise it will poison you.”

Silverio’s journey through his life has some familiar strains — it’s clear that Iñárritu has watched Bob Fosse’s “All That Jazz” and Federico Fellini’s “8 1/2,” both famous movies about filmmakers mining their pasts for fodder. It doesn’t always work here, but watching Iñárritu and his “Birdman” collaborator Nicolás Giacobone try to figure it all out over nearly three hours is intriguing.

——

‘Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths’

★★★

Opens Friday, November 18, in some theaters, and streaming on Netflix. Rated R for language throughout, strong sexual content and graphic nudity. Running time: 159 minutes; in Spanish, with subtitles.