Bardo is a 2014 film from Mongolia directed by Agvaantseren Enkhtaivan.
Agvaa is a street cleaner in Ulaanbaatar. His job sometimes involves clearing routine debris, but sometimes requires cleaning the aftermath of traffic accidents. One day he has to clean up after a traffic collision that killed a young mother named Erdentsetseg. It's tragic, but it happens, and Agvaa has other concerns, like Tuya his pretty coworker and how his boss is trying to match them up.
Then he starts to have visions of Erdentsetseg. The dead woman's ghost begins to follow him around the city. It becomes clear that Erdentsetseg's spirit has some Unfinished Business.
The title comes from the Buddhist word "bardo
", meaning an intermediate state between life and death.
Not to be confused with the Mexican film Bardo False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu.
Tropes:
- And the Adventure Continues: The film ends with Algaa's boss Shuurai going to Boroo the shamaness to get some advice of his own.
- Chalk Outline: The chalk outline of where poor Erdentsetseg fell is still visible when Algaa picks up her personal belongings.
- Flashback: A flashback to Algaa cleaning up the site of the accident, and specifically picking up Erdentsetseg's belongings. This is implied to be the reason why her spirit fixates on Algaa as her agent.
- Invisible to Adults: No one else can see the ghost of Erdentsetseg—except her little son Batdorj, who recognizes his mom when she shows up in Algaa's apartment near the end of the film.
- Kubrick Stare: In true Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl style, Erdentsetseg gives a lot of these when she begins to haunt Algaa.
- The Matchmaker: Shuurai, Algaa's supervisor, who urges him to ask out good-looking and also single Tuya.
- One-Word Title: Bardo, the state between life and death.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Erdentsetseg appears to Algaa as your standard Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl. But once Algaa realizes what he has to do, and takes little Batdorj for himself rather than let Batdorj's father send the boy away, Erdentsetseg visibly cheers up, and strides along behind them as a happy ghost mom.
- Parental Abandonment: Either Dorjoo already had a mistress or he picked up a girlfriend with indecent haste after his wife died. Either way, he has a girlfriend and at the girlfriend's behest he's sending his small son off into "the countryside"—an orphanage, apparently.
- Purgatory and Limbo: Nothing in the actual movie portrays this, but "bardo" is a Buddhist term for an indeterminate state between life and death. It seems that Erdentsetseg is stuck in bardo until she can complete her Unfinished Business.
- Sexy Shirt Switch: The girlfriend that startles Algaa with her presence when he visits Dorjoo is wearing one of Dorjoo's shirts.
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Erdentsetseg is a stringy-haired ghost girl right out of central casting: white robe, pale face, lank stringy hair, Kubrick Stare.
- Unfinished Business: Erdentsetseg has haunted Algaa to get his help in preventing her son from being shipped off to an orphanage. When Algaa winds up adopting Batdorj himself, she disappears.
