Review: The Revenant

The Revenant: a Visual Experience and proof that Leo has no boundaries to his comfort Zone.

7/10 Spins

The Recipe

“Blood lost. Life found”

An 1820’s frontier-man with a taste for local Native-American specialties (there’s a son to prove it), gets attacked by a shapely bear while working as a tracker for fur-traders. At some point, Leo’s fur-trading friends decide to leave the mangled man behind. This dish will offer you blood, teeth-grinding, gunpowder and some truly spectacular views of the American Frontier. Sponsored by Canada.

Ingredients

·      Leonardo Di Caprio – HUGH GLASS

·     Tom Hardy – JOHN FITZGERALD

·      Forrest Goodluck – HAWK

·      Domhnall Gleeson – Cpt. ANDREW HENRY

The Specifics

•        Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
•        Released on: 8^th of January, 2016
•        Runtime: 2 hours & 36 minutes
•       The Price-Tag: 135 million USD
•        Destributor: 20^{th Century Fox}
•        Produced by: New Regency Pictures
•        Gross revenue (4 weeks): 152 million USD

Leonardo DiCaprio. 20th Century Fox

What did we see?

Once the media had been offered the initial screening of “The Revenant”, the movie became known to the general public (& the bookmakers) as the one that “will get Leo his first Oscar”. Granted with fistfuls of Oscar Nominations and Golden Globes, everyone’s expecting this thing to score.
Three things: DiCaprio should have gotten an Oscar ages ago. Secondly: he puts down an astronomical, lively, albeit one-sided performance in this feature. Thirdly: never trust bookmakers.

Our cards are on the table, let’s play.

It’s spectacular

Most of the locations that are featured in the movie, are actually in Canada. The province of British-Columbia can be considered a true gem to the eye, proof that even today “true wilderness” is most definitively not a thing of the past (and why we should protect it). Alejandro González Iñárritu and director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki have provided us - the viewers - with brutish purity, the perfect shots of unspoiled landscapes. 

Landscapes that will provide you with the unsettling feeling, that –despite their beauty - they can be the undoing of the lonely traveler.

 This is exactly the sentiment that any movie about a lone survivor should offer. You should truly sense the hardship they’re going through, you should almost be able to sense the frostbite setting in, regardless of the fact that you’re actually sitting in a plushy movie theater seat. Iñárritu succeeds with perfection.

It’s good

One might argue, “isn’t this something the likes of National Geographic or David Attenborough have been doing for years”? True, but there’s a background-story as well. “Man works for the military, looking for adventure and gets deployed at the frontier. Man has an encounter with a Native American women an decides to spend his life with her in her own village. 

Man makes woman pregnant, woman gives birth to a son. Fast-Forward, the former employer of the man sends out troops to the village. Troop slaugthers the entire village except the man an his son. The woman dies. Fast-Forward, the man and the son work as frontiermen. The man only has one purpose in life, to provide for the son.”

The story works pretty well, nothing revolutionary but very believable. Its main purpose is to add (justified) drama and provide depth to the personae of the main characters. 

In correlation to the "current-day" events of the main story, most of these past-events are provided through the formats of flashbacks and hallucinations/dreams.

There’s one event in the story that pretty much serves as the turning-point that fuels all the actions that will follow. As most who have seen the trailer know by now, the son dies. The father’s out for revenge.

There’s a duality 

Iñárritu is out to impress and for some people (like us) that feeling will always linger at the back of your mind. Context & content should always be presented as a single entity. The beauty of the locations and the bloodiness of some of the scenes are in stark contrast. An artistic choice we – naturally – applaud. However, both of these aspects are so well made, that switching between them will make you long for the other. When the camera majestically meanders through the landscape, following the course of a river, you’ll always be left wanting to see what’s behind the next bend,  not a scene of gruffly bearded men sitting around a campfire. When it features Glass (the Man) warding of yet another creature (a bear, an Indian, an authentic scalpless villain), a long shot of pines reflected in a muddy puddle, is not what you’d been waiting for.

Good thing is that the soundscape is quite impressive, range from howling winds, soothing rain to raging rivers, everything sounds natural while adding another layer of depth and drama.

Then there’s the poetic aspect, dreamscapes, symbolic appearances (like Glass’s deceased wife that’ll  keep turning up) and hallucinations of strange locale’s (the Church) are a regular thing. Given the exceptional nature of the landscape, the transitions between the dreams and reality are stellar, subtile and just very well done, Iñárritu.

The Verdict

This movie boast cinematic love, craftsmanship, impressive soundscapes, impressive performances and nail-devouring thrills. The dialogues have depth, the characters are well cast and some of the scenes will have you crushing the hands of whoever’s lucky sitting next to you.

If the revenant were a Salad, it would be salty, sweet, bitter and sour. There are many ingredients but not all of them mix together like the director and the writers had intended. There’s gore,  blood, struggle, beauty  and poetry. The nature of the landscapes, the thrill of the fight and the poetry of the dream scenes tend to overshadow one another.  At some occasions however – like the dance with that bear – everything blends into perfect unity. This movie is a 2016 must-see and will be remembered decades to come.

DiCaprio’s performance is more than noteworthy, we haven’t seen Leo’s body raging with cold shakes ever since that boating accident. However, if he has to win an Oscar, let it be in another movie (like the Wolf of Wallstreet). He’s drooling in this one.