The Revenant

About three-quarters of the way through this 156 minute film, the already grievously injured Hugh Glass (Leonardo diCaprio) is on a horse which tumbles off a ravine, landing him in a tree. Glass has gone through endless torments, and this is a story of his survival against the environment and people of the non-specific American West in the non-specific 1820s.

Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárito won Best Director last year at the Oscars for Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (the film also won Best Picture and Best Screenplay). This film opens here with many nominations for this years Academy Awards. The film was by all accounts a gruelling one to make so maybe it’s somehow fair that the audience should suffer through Glass’s journey, which is not merely survival against the natural environment, but contains a good deal of spiritual survival amongst Native Americans who are horribly mistreated by Glass’s colleagues, trappers who sell bear pelts. And of course bears are unequivocal in their defence of themselves and their family. And it is under these circumstances that Hugh Glass is almost killed. The bear attack, almost a witty cliché thanks to that famous Shakespearean stage direction “exit Stage Left, pursued by bear”, is particularly brutal and unflinchingly photographed. Man and bear roll around and attack with everything they’ve got. It’s a scene that manages to fall on the good side of the harrowing/hilarious line. 

Underneath the unending pain there is a truth about the film. It is a worthy story of a man’s search for revenge, and also coming to terms with living in the environment with everyone. There is the moral quandary of whether to put Glass out of his misery out of compassion (and not just because he’s holding everyone back and endangering the group). Whenever a big movie shows a white man joining forces with Native Americans the mind goes to Dances With Wolves, somehow a more satisfying film. When in this film one of the Pawnee makes a statement about how the land was taken from them it seems unsubtle and unlikely, even if it is true.

DiCaprio is quite good, although this really doesn’t seem like a Best Actor performance. His performance is necessarily all in the action as he doesn’t have that many lines. He does have to eviscerate a horse and climb naked into it to stay warm in the night. Shot in Calgary with scenes in order, the horse scene should not remind one of The Empire Strikes Back but “this may smell bad, kid…” could not stay out of my mind. Additionally, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the film is entirely shot with natural light. It would have been unusual to set up lighting in such a wild film, and the choice is a good one. To watch The Revenant is to be immersed in a wilderness to such an extent that you end up thinking that it is so unreal in modern times. But is shooting with natural light really the mark of a superlative director of photography?

It’s a difficult film to watch, and it almost defies comparison except the comparisons I’ve already made, and perhaps The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford On the one hand it feels like a deliberately hefty and pretentious film but after the trauma of actually watching it, the meaning gradually permeates through you - and you’re left with the perhaps overly ‘safe’ conclusion that the point could have been better made in a shorter and overall less arduous film.