The Revenant

The Revenant, 2015

Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, 156 minutes

Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domnhall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck

Review by Katherine Scheetz

In The Revenant, Director Iñárritu takes us to the ass-end of the earth and with establishing shots that stop your heart, turns us into believers.

The film chronicles frontiersman Hugh Glass (DiCaprio), who is known for surviving a grizzly bear attack and then crawling 200 miles through the unforgiving Dakota territory back to Fort Kiowa after being abandoned and left for dead.

At the time of the bear incident Glass’ fur-trading possé includes pretty boy Captain Henry (Gleeson), a crass, scalped Fitzgerald (Hardy), the naïve, smooth-faced Bridger (Poulter) and Glass’ half-Pawnee son, Hawk (Goodluck). For those that don’t know Gleeson’s name yet: he’s the ginger in any film you’ve seen since Harry Potter ended and he is one to watch. Meanwhile Hardy spits out his dialogue opposite a cool-headed DiCaprio. It’s blatant the two of them needed one another on set.

Yes, the mauling is rattling to watch but the virtue of the film is in how Iñárritu shows everything that follows. Glass sucks marrow out of snow covered animal skeletons. He cauterizes his own neck wound with gunpowder and flint. He cracks open the steaming carcass of a horse to survive yet another blizzard. In this role, DiCaprio tests the limits on the resilience of the human spirit.

Iñárritu doesn’t stop there. He threads in a narrative of the crumbling nations of Arikara and Pawnee, which include Glass’s Pawnee wife and son, giving unfiltered exposure to the festering flesh of how the west was really won. Fever-induced dreams unfold Glass’ backstory and the origin of his respect for the natural world. That reverence, learned from his time with his wife, is reinforced in a tender encounter with a weather-worn Pawnee man.

Settling like a fresh fallen snow atop the layers of story is the cinematography executed by Emmanuel Lubezki. He and Iñárritu romance us with amber firelight against blue-white birch bark. Just the panning landscapes and the minimal, hair-raising score by Ryûichi Sakamoto would make an excellent documentary. But it’s all done in natural lighting, it’s all done with the mud and sweat from the days before still caked on. The Revenant is a benchmark and with the audience's blessing, may Hollywood produce many more.

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