Alejandro González Iñárritu, director of Birdman and The Revenant, took advantage of his visit to Venice to clash Robert Downey Jr. and superhero films. And there is no dead hand!
Alejandro González Iñárritu, the Oscar-winning director of Birdman and The Revenant, is not done with Robert Downey Jr.! In 2014, the filmmaker caused controversy when he told Deadline that superhero movies were a form of “cultural genocide”.
“It’s poison because the audience is so exposed to the plot and the explosions and all that shit that it says nothing at all about the simple experience of being a human,” raged the Mexican director.
Words that were not to the taste of Robert Downey Jr., the interpreter of Iron Man. “For a man whose native language is Spanish, being able to put words like ‘cultural genocide’ together shows how brilliant he is”tackled the actor with a touch of sarcasm at the microphone of The Guardian in 2015.
OIL ON THE FIRE
A media journalist Indiewire reignited the wick of controversy during the Venice Film Festival, again asking Iñárritu about it. The director, who came to present Bardo, was quick to get carried away.
“What the fuck does that mean? The idea of superheroes is wrong, misleading. If you look at the mentality of most of these movies, it’s about people who are rich, who have power, who do good, who kill the wicked. Philosophically, I don’t like them.”
Iñárritu also returned to the words of Robert Downey Jr., which obviously have not been digested 7 years later.
“It was as if I had been told, ‘Oh, you people from your backward country, there [banana country]”If I came from Denmark or Sweden, I would have been seen as a philosopher, but when you are Mexican and you say things, you are pretentious”he lamented, surely ironic about the Swedish Ruben Östlund, winner of his 2nd Palme d’Or with Without filter.
The least we can say is that the director is not about to stage a Marvel! And that’s good, because his next film, Bardo, will be available on December 16 on Netflix.
The story follows the character of Silverio, a well-known Mexican journalist and documentary filmmaker living in Los Angeles. He must receive a prestigious international prize, this one returns to his native country, without knowing that this simple trip will confront him with a terrible existential crisis.
His memories and his anxieties resurface on this occasion until they obsess him and plunge him into a state of confusion and wonder.
With emotion and humour, Silverio confronts both universal and intimate questions about identity, success, mortality, Mexican history and the deep ties that bind him to his wife and children. In other words, to the very reason for being of the human species in these very special times…