A commonly used phrase in the world of acting goes, “You got to feel the pain felt by your given character” or “You have to portray the suffering on screen in the most truthful manner reaching out to the viewers”.
The phrase could earlier be best defined with films such as CASTAWAY (2000) featuring Tom Hanks in a similar kind of theme, but in the new millennium, now we have THE REVENANT describing it perfectly, though missing that spiritual, human touch of Inarritu’s earlier films discussed in the later section of the review, focusing on the achievements first.
Beginning with the brightest part, yes THE REVENANT is an Alejandro G. Inarritu film, who yet again comes up with a gigantic effort in terms of filmmaking post his earlier award winning precious gems (two of those also feature in BTC’s ‘Movies To See Before You Die’ list). The creator visibly surpasses his own (technical) standards set in the past, along with the exceptionally talented team following the incredible vision of a film revolving around a brave survivor, who successfully fights through his life-threatening opponents posing as humans, wild beasts and nature in an unbelievably miraculous manner.
However a visionary director and a gifted cinematographer alone cannot make any such film as THE REVENANT since they both need a man of guts, an immensely gifted performer and a magician of his art, who can actually portray their vision on screen putting in his priceless individual effort and contribution, taking the creation to another level.
So in my personal opinion, THE REVENANT in reality is a Leonardo DiCaprio film much more than Inarritu or anyone else as they all just couldn’t have made it without the actor giving his utmost commitment living the vision on screen, willfully offering himself to all kind of tortures, sufferings and hardships as required. In other words, Leonardo truly suffers in THE REVENANT enacting his given role and delivers a highly impressive, raw, yet genuinely praiseworthy performance and that too without the help of any hard hitting dialogues or explosive human interaction in the major part of the film. He simply enacts many jaw-dropping, brutal sequences leaving you stoned in your seat at times and amazingly succeeds to convey the pain through his partially visible eyes and face buried under the heavy furs, untidy hair and visible bleeding wounds all over his critically battered body. No doubt, Tom Hardy as the villain backstabbing Leo & killing his son excels in his given role too. But it’s Leonardo who unarguably snatches away the entire attention of the viewers conquering the screen in its every single frame from start to finish, emerging a winner all the way undoubtedly.
Coming back to its imaginative creators - the director Inarritu, his master cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and the composers Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto, THE REVENANT can easily be rated as a visually stunning film conceived by a team of perfectionists, that essentially needs to be seen on the bigger screen alone and not on your desktops/laptops or LED TV sets.
Based on a part of Michael Punke's novel having the same title, it’s about the struggle for survival made by a fur trapper Hugh Glass who gets abandoned by his group after getting mercilessly mauled by a huge bear, with only few hours of life left in his severely damaged body that cannot be taken along. Set in the early nineteenth century, the tale is supposedly based on a true story that admittedly also has the shades of a typical revenge drama much often seen in our Hindi films.
As a relentlessly ruthless depiction of fight for survival, THE REVENANT actually works at many other levels apart from the magnificent performances.
Narrating the experience of watching its beautiful as well as frightening cinematography by Lubezki, it has been reportedly shot in only natural lighting, which becomes evident watching the huge frames featuring the scary landscapes and the mountains. In fact, such is the mesmerizing effect of the white snowy visuals in the film, that at times one feels the sense of cold sitting in the theater and seems to be enjoying the heat whenever the sun gets visible on the screen post a dark, night sequence. The cinematography becomes a character of the script post the initial 30 minutes and the film is sure to be considered as a benchmark in this field for the years to come.
THE REVENANT is cruelly devastating experience when it comes to its upsetting, bloody sequences namely the brilliantly visualized bear attack, the consumption of raw reddish meat pulled out of the dead bull and tearing apart the body of a dead horse (taking out its big organs) in order to use it as a night shelter, getting the life-saving warmth from its still fresh carcass and thick flesh. Here the most inspiring fact remains that despite knowing that it’s all a digital trickery of CGI department and not the real things, yet the thought doesn’t strike even once while watching these particular sequences and it all seems to be so real, executed with an amazing accuracy, disturbing the faint-hearted sitting in the theatre and the ones munching into something (giving them the obvious related ideas). The film, therefore, is a rare epic balancing between the beauty and the blood, pushing the envelope further in terms of dedicated filmmaking.
But having said that, I am still not able to praise THE REVENANT as a perfect venture, since everything else in it, in terms of heartfelt emotions and an instant connect with the viewers goes missing which was surprisingly pretty strong in Inarritu’s previous films. No doubt THE REVENANT is breathtakingly shocking and stunning by all means when it comes to its visuals, digital imagery and worth praising performances. But I personally couldn’t find myself shattered emotionally or in a state of creepy silence, recalling the experience of watching Inarritu’s AMORES PERROS or BABEL in the past (and that too on the smaller screen).
Putting it differently, the humane touch or spiritual impact is missing in THE REVENANT, that frankly leaves the film as a simple revival and revenge tale in its entirety with nothing else to say as far as the theme is concerned. May be the director wished to say a lot more communicating with the inner self of a person left all alone in the chilling surroundings establishing a new relationship with ‘the mother nature’. But the end-result isn’t able to convey anything of that sort at all and the narration keeps stressing on the sufferings alone with a lot of bloodshed and violence. Moreover at a length of 156 minutes it also tends to be too long for a survival tale asking for a lot of patience, especially in the last hour when the revenge is the only motive left for DeCaprio, heading towards a predictable finale.
Sharing another interesting observation, I found a lot of Quentin Tarantino kind of treatment in Inarritu’s THE REVENANT and amusingly QT’s latest venture THE HATEFUL EIGHT was also based around the cruelly cold, snowy surroundings set in the nineteenth century having revenge as its basic theme too.
Anyway, keeping my personal reservations aside, THE REVENANT indeed is a must watch creation for all, not only for the heroic performance by Leo, but for the fascinating visualization by director Inarritu and his cinematographer Lubezki too, including the incredibly believable computer graphics. However I am still unable to rate it above Alejandro G. Inarritu’s earlier masterpieces already included in the must watch list of BTC for the reasons mentioned above. So forgiving me for this bluntness, do watch THE REVENANT in the theatre and a have a bloody tough time with DiCaprio.
Rating : 3 + 1 / 5 (with the additional one, just for Leonardo DiCaprio alone for his remarkable, path-breaking performance)
