IronWatcher’s review published on Letterboxd:
Watched on Blu-Ray
Alejandro G. Iñárritu is undoubtedly one of the most capable and interesting directors of our time, and every new project he undertakes can be awaited with great excitement. His feature film debut "Amores Perros" (2000), which premiered in Cannes, already earned him numerous laurels before he finally established himself as a contemporary master director with "21 Grams" (2003) and "Babel" (2006). After the gruelling melodrama "Biutiful" (2010), the Mexican set off on an unusually comedic path with the lively showbiz satire "Birdman" (2014), which won him three Oscars.
In his sixth feature film Iñárritu strikes a completely different note. In "The Revenant" the bitter seriousness and an archaic hardness reigns again. From the novel of the same name by Michael Punke, which is partly based on true events, which as "Man in the Wilderness" (1971) was already filmed by director Richard C. Sarafian very freely and the story of the trapper Hugh Glass outlined in broad outlines, Inarritu makes a grim survival and revenge thriller in the guise of a western.
The production of "The Revenant" was an extraordinary feat. Rumors about various problems and arguments on the set, such as overdated deadlines, exploding budget and catastrophes in "Apocalypse Now" dimensions, promptly made the rounds and caused a lot of headlines. Inarritu made the unusual decision to shoot the film in chronological order, contrary to usual practice. In addition, he insisted not only on shooting at original locations but also on not using artificial light sources. This made shooting more difficult, as only a few hours of shooting time were available each day, but in the end it looks incredibly coherent and good. And CGI is the devil's work anyway - (even though the incredible bear scene is of course of digital origin) - more about that later.
These cinematic purity laws made the already adverse conditions in the Canadian wilderness even more difficult. The shooting took several months, far longer than any other production and demanded a lot from all involved. Not everyone joined in the fun and left work under protest. But the strains that the actors and crew took on were worth it. Those who stuck with it can be happy about the result. Artistically, the Mexican director's uncompromising approach paid off, because "The Revenant" is spectacular in several respects.
The virtuosity of the production, especially on the part of Emmanuel Lubezki - probably Hollywood's best DoP besides Roger Deakins - becomes clear right at the beginning with an epic sequence of an Indian attack. Like no other, he knows how to capture an incredibly powerful visual experience through his image composition and many gimmicks alone. Instead of making it easy for himself to make hectic cuts everywhere and to fake dynamics with a shaky camera, Inarritu stages the carnage as a bloody ballet with arrows and tomahawks, in which the camera floats quietly and mostly without cuts through the rows of the fighting, while the unembellished events are choreographed magnificently before the eyes of the viewer, much more brutal than most action movie brawls.
This is the first time that it becomes apparent what kind of tough tone "The Revenant" strikes and what else might be waiting for you, because in terms of brutality the movie really doesn't compromise and should give those who are a bit sensitive a restless night. Thus, the creative Inarritu-Lubezki team provides a fantastic movie experience with scenes that burn into the retina.
A further bravura piece is one of the film's core sequences, the ingeniously choreographed grizzly attack, which is implemented with perfectly integrated computer animation and is consistently continued in its raw immediacy. Leonardo DiCaprio is not raped by the bear, but it does not make things much more pleasant for him. The death struggle, which takes place so close in front of the camera that the lens fogges up, is so brutal and intense, and also technically brilliantly staged, that the brutality of the attack is directly transferred to the viewer and therefore really gets under your skin. Raw violence, gaping wounds and spreading innards never degenerate into an end in itself and are certainly not designed for the disgusting effect, but instead just underline the raw elemental force of the relentless nature, making it a stylistic device Inarritu uses to illustrate the odyssey across the icy wilderness.
In general, "The Revenant" presents itself in equal parts as a survival and revenge thriller. But most of all the former, as most of the time the dangers of the wilderness and the nature make the characters hard to deal with. The life-hostile setting is quickly established, even some impressive landscape paintings don't hide this fact. For Hugh Glass it's all about bare survival, the icy temperatures, wild animals, lack of food, stormy weather and of course a whole range of serious injuries determine his struggle and make sure that the trip into the woods becomes a real horror trip.
"The Revenant" is a film that makes the fight for survival almost physically tangible. Leonardo DiCaprio (hardly recognizable under his feral beard) impressively expresses the inner and outer torments of the trapper, even almost without any dialogue, but crawling, wheezing and with madness in his eyes. The frostbites in his face look damn real and he also pulls through the full method acting program: eating raw buffalo liver even though he's a vegetarian. Doing a trapper boot camp and learning two Indian languages. For this he got the well-deserved golden boy.
The other performers are almost inevitably overshadowed by DiCaprio's exhausting performance and are little more than marginal figures in the glass-focused survival epic. Nevertheless, Tom Hardy in particular succeeds in giving his roughly sketched role in the script the necessary authenticity with a tangible performance as Fitzgerald, for example by demonstrating mimic expressiveness in a monologue around the campfire, which makes him a plausible character. The psychotic Fitzgerald was half scalped and therefore hates Indians to the bone. His contempt for Hawk and his hardcore selfishness make him an antagonist. While Will Poulter as an inexperienced greenhorn and Fitzgerald's unwilling companion and especially the versatile Domhnall Gleeson as a righteous leader set convincing accents.
With "The Revenant", Iñárritu not only delivered a visually overwhelming and staged absolutely dense survival and revenge thriller of rare impact, but also set the stage for the well-deserved Oscar for Leonardo DiCaprio. "The Revenant" is more of an art film than typical entertaining popcorn cinema and therefore too special to please everyone. Although this is basically true for every movie Inarritu's made so far...
