“The Revenant” is the sixth film to be directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, whose previous film “Birdman” won best picture of 2014. The themes of “The Revenant” include Man against nature, Man against his fellow Man, and even Man against himself. To be blunt, “The Revenant” is not a happy film; it is about survival and death, and about one man’s struggle not just against nature, but against his fellow man. This is not a film for children, and it is not even a film for the faint of heart. The violence is uncompromising and unflinching, and even the themes are intense enough to give a more sensitive person nightmares.
The film tells the true story of Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio), a frontiersman and fur trapper who is attacked by a bear and left for dead by his companions John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), Domnhall Gleeson, and Will Poulter. Glass then survives the ordeal and goes on a journey to find the people who left him for dead. The opening sequence is unbelievably brutal and acts as a combination of “Saving Private Ryan”, “No Country for Old Men” and Robert Redford’s “Jeremiah Johnson.” The intensity of the violence in this film cannot be overstated. There are scenes of people being scalped, shot, having limbs chopped off, riddled with arrows, drowned, stabbed, hanged and mauled. There is even one brief scene of sexual violence. However, the film never glorifies violence or revenge, it shows it for what it is, and that is to be commended.
However, “The Revenant” is a film of contrasts, and the biggest contrast of the film is showing horrific violence, then the stark beauty of the landscape these characters are surviving in. The cinematography of this film is outstanding; it is easily the most beautiful film of 2015 and is made all the more impressive by the circumstances of its production. The film was shot entirely with natural light, meaning that every single shot was lit by either fire or the sun. The locations “The Revenant” was shot in were so beautiful it was almost overwhelming to the eyes. Every frame in the film could be considered a work of art featuring vast mountains, ancient forests, and rivers. And snow. The constant presence of snow may have tricked my mind, but I could actually feel myself getting colder as the film wore on. The cinematography, mixed with the sure direction from Iñárritu, creates a perfect canvas for the actors to work on.
Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass is the kind of performance that could be seen as a defining moment in his career as an actor. With less than one hundred lines in the movie, most of which are not even in English, DiCaprio is able to communicate every single emotion he needs to in every scene he is in. During filming, DiCaprio endured sub-zero temperatures, ate raw bison meat, and nearly drowned. DiCaprio committed to his role and gave everything he could to become the man we see on screen. Tom Hardy’s performance as John Fitzgerald, the principal antagonist, is an excellent foil to DiCaprio. Glass and Fitzgerald both have a drive to survive, they just see to it through different means. DiCaprio suffers, and sacrifices his body to preserve his inner spirit, while Hardy gives up his spirit and the lives of others to preserve his own self-interest. The characters in the film never seem to be a cartoonish exaggeration of good or evil. Everyone has their own motivations for what they are doing and it shines through in every frame.
Overall, “The Revenant” is a deeply challenging but rewarding film. It is clearly not a happy film, but it is a beautiful one. For people willing to ask yourself hard questions about what it means to survive, to live, to be human, then this film is for them. It is uncompromising in its vision and left the entire theater speechless afterwards. The summation of all the efforts made by Iñárritu and DiCaprio allowed them to create one of the best films of 2015. This film gets a 4.5/5.
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