Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths ending explained: What happened to Silverio?

As confirmed by director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths is his most personal film to date and is sure to be considered a modern cinematic masterpiece in the coming years. The movie saw a theatrical release on November 18, 2022, which was later made available on the popular streaming platform Netflix on December 16, 2022.

Despite being on the receiving end of several mixed reviews, Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths is a memorable watch for fans of Kafkaesque surrealism and boundless fantasy. The story follows a convoluted journalist/documentary filmmaker who returns to his native country of Mexico and begins having an existential crisis in the form of dreamlike visions.

However, one of the most important questions that is asked by viewers is regarding the protagonist, Silverio Gama, and what happens to him in the end. As such, this article will discuss the ending of Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths with respect to Silverio's fate.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers from Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths.

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Silverio's fate in the ambiguous ending of Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths leaves much room for interpretation

Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths opened with a confusing yet comedic childbirth. It's eventually revealed that the scene metaphorically represents Mateo's birth, who tragically dies just a day later.

Throughout the film, Silverio and his wife, Lucía, carry this emotional baggage even years after the tragic incident. The couple resides in Los Angeles with their son, Lorenzo, and seems to live a life of contentment. Despite looking like a normal family, Silverio often shows signs of depression and anxiety. Moreover, he experiences much of his day-to-day life in a surreal fashion, with dreams, memories, and fantasies playing out alongside his activities.

After bagging a prestigious journalistic award, the Mexican documentarian visits his native country with his family to receive it. We are then introduced to Camila, his adult daughter, who lives and works in Boston. From this point onwards, the movie begins taking a grim turn when Silverio's dreams and imagination go from bad to worse.

His dreams even made him encounter his deceased parents, as well as the historic 16th-century Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. Even as Silverio becomes more accepting and warm during the second half of the film, he suffers a violent stroke during a metro ride in LA and loses his ability to function normally as he descends into a coma.

The final scene of the film sees him reunite with his departed family members in a near-featureless desert within his mind.

What we make of this ending is that Silverio has been in a comatose state all along. It was a semi-accurate recollection of the events in the film. However, it was influenced by the conversations around his hospital bedroom. This is why the part where Lucía asked where he had been at the beginning of the movie sounded strange and downright ghostly.

Even scenes where his daughter accepts his journalism award on his behalf, him getting nailed to the stage, swimming across a flooded subway car, the Battle of Chapultepec in 1847, baby Mateo crawling into the sea, etc., are all fragments of his coma-induced imagination.

In the end, he is reunited with his deceased family members and tells his living family not to join him since they didn't belong there. He even meets a copy of himself, which mirrors his movement, and finally leaps so high that he does not come back down to earth. This suggests that Silverio is finally at peace with himself, accepting of identity and the origin of his existence.

The revelation of his death, reawakening, or learning to live with his baggage isn't explicitly revealed, as the ambiguous ending leaves room for interpretation to its viewers.

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Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, is now available to stream on Netflix.