To find models for his unusual narrative, Iñárritu looked to an unlikely source of inspiration. “In the ’70s, I loved these albums that were concept albums,” he said. “There were no singles, there was no division. The Pink Floyd albums, or Yes, or Genesis’ ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.’ Albums like that or David Bowie’s were telling a story and the songs were blending and it was just an atmosphere — a dream state, and the story’s kind of subjective. So the idea was always that: to not necessarily have act one, act two, act three; to not build or construct something, but to liberate and erase the boundaries and borders between genres and compartmentalization of things. This film required much more than others because I was trying to express things that I have not solved, things that I have to overcome, experiences, dreams. Memories that did not make sense, that were telling me something that I did not understand… that were absolutely mysterious, but they were coming up and were affecting me.”
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