The Revenant
Directed by: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Written by: Mark L. Smith & Alejandro González Iñárritu - Based on the novel by Michael Punke
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck, Paul Anderson, Kristoffer Joner, Joshua Burge, Duane Howard, Melaw Nakehk'o, Fabrice Adde, Arthur RedCloud
Adventure/Drama/Thriller - 156 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 30 Dec 2015
Written by: Mark L. Smith & Alejandro González Iñárritu - Based on the novel by Michael Punke
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck, Paul Anderson, Kristoffer Joner, Joshua Burge, Duane Howard, Melaw Nakehk'o, Fabrice Adde, Arthur RedCloud
Adventure/Drama/Thriller - 156 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 30 Dec 2015
Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s The Revenant is one of the most formidable and authentic films ever created. It is also an endurance test. Much has been written about the extreme violence and harsh experiences endured by the cast and crew to shoot it. At my early screening, medical staff set up volunteers with heart monitors to track their physical reaction to the film; although, I think the monitors were more for show and hype than actual medical concerns. I believe watching The Revenant in a theater will be based on dares and the opportunity to impress your friends that you were the one brave enough to sit through a very long, intense, and awe-inspiring epic. The Revenant proves Iñárritu has graduated into a grandmaster level of auteurs only a handful of directors achieve in our lifetime. He joins John Ford, Orson Welles, and Steven Spielberg amongst others able to mold art from the void in such a manner film audiences have never seen before.
The Revenant will stun even the most jaded and unimpressed film-goers. The man who says he has seen everything has never seen this. Shot chronologically in the bitter cold of Alberta, British Columbia, and the extreme end of Tierra Del Fuego in Argentina, and only using natural light, Iñárritu forms perhaps the most authentic period piece outside of a documentary. The only light comes from the sun and firelight. Therefore, the crew had at most a 20-30 minute window to shoot on any given day. The rest of the day was spent choreographing tomorrow’s work, undergoing hours of makeup, and attempting not to lose any limbs or digits to frostbite.
The Revenant will stun even the most jaded and unimpressed film-goers. The man who says he has seen everything has never seen this. Shot chronologically in the bitter cold of Alberta, British Columbia, and the extreme end of Tierra Del Fuego in Argentina, and only using natural light, Iñárritu forms perhaps the most authentic period piece outside of a documentary. The only light comes from the sun and firelight. Therefore, the crew had at most a 20-30 minute window to shoot on any given day. The rest of the day was spent choreographing tomorrow’s work, undergoing hours of makeup, and attempting not to lose any limbs or digits to frostbite.
Iñárritu and his cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, both just won Oscars for their work on Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), declared Best Picture at the 2015 Academy Awards. If Lubezki wins again, it will mark three Oscars in a row for him since he won for Gravity in 2013. Following a film shot almost completely indoors in backstage theater areas and dressing rooms, venturing outdoors into miserable cold and only rarely coming indoors into shabby log cabins, The Revenant and Birdman are visually polar opposites. Yet, they share Lubezki’s penchant for extended shots and calculated choreography. Lubezki also impresses with the duality between long-range panoramic shots showing man’s vulnerability in the face of raw nature and extreme close-ups where both men and animals actually fog the camera lens with their breath.
Based on true events, The Revenant, meaning one who has risen from the dead, is personified by Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street). Glass is a skilled mountain man, hunter, trapper, and guide. Working for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company in western South Dakota, Glass is attached to a crew of trappers stripping the land of most of its mammals to bundle up, carry back to Fort Kiowa, and later to send back to Europe to furnish the trendy headgear of cosmopolitan women. The expedition, led by young Captain Anthony Henry (Domhnall Gleeson, Star Wars: The Force Awakens), comes under attack from a local Native tribe, the Ariaka, referred to simply as the Ree. The attack, based on a misunderstanding, works just as well as revenge against the invaders who intrude upon Ariaka land, annihilate their natural resources, and methodically bring disease and destruction with them.
While leading a ragtag group of survivors back to the fort, a startled grizzly bear savagely mauls Glass, perhaps the absolute last thing someone already struggling to survive in the elements wants to run into. The man versus bear attack is reason enough for the heart monitors. The bear, a CGI manifestation, picks up Glass as easily as a teddy bear, sinks his teeth and claws into his flesh, and stomps him to the edge of death. Captain Henry leaves behind a small party of men with Glass to either bury him when he inevitably succumbs to his wounds or somehow carry him back to the fort if he pulls through. Glass’s son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), a young Jim Bridger (Will Poulter, The Maze Runner), and the nefarious Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy, Mad Max: Fury Road) remain behind.
Hawk is half white man and half Pawnee. Earlier, choppily edited shots which make more sense later on, show Glass living among the Pawnee and watching his wife die when white raiders burn down a Pawnee village, murder every Native they see, and even set Hawk on fire. Poulter’s Jim Bridger is the same name you know as the famous mountain man and guide from the American West. In this story, set in 1823, Bridger is a young man on the border of manhood who will lose his innocence and naiveté along the way. His last name is actually a pun as he crosses a figurative bridge between boy and man during the journey. Fitzgerald is one of the most menacing villains in recent memory. Ruled by and acting out of tremendous fear and ignorance, Fitzgerald will kill, lie to, and butcher anything or anyone in his path for self-preservation.
Back to the authenticity. The actors were coached and speak in appropriate accents. The Natives speak the pure Ariaka language. The war paint on the horses, the feathers in the headdresses, and the characters’ wardrobes were all meticulously researched for accuracy. Filming outside in the elements also ups the realism factor. The actors do not pretend to be freezing and exhausted; they were. That really is a raw bison liver DiCaprio bites into. Based on Michael Punke’s 2002 fictionalized account of famous oral tales passed down through generations about the indestructible Hugh Glass called The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge, no revenge can be had until Glass painstakingly crawls and scrapes himself back to Fitzgerald. Oozing in blood and death, The Revenant is not for your grandmother. It is to appreciate the art and craft of a higher level of filmmaking.
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