[yasr_overall_rating]
A frontiersman named Hugh Glass on a fur trading expedition in the 1820s is on a quest for survival after being brutally mauled by a bear.
Surreal and magnificent in its beauty, “The Revenant” declares a stark contrast between violence in nature and violence committed by men. Director Alejandro González Iñárritu delivers his second complex masterpiece in a row with a film that relies as much on the scenery, sound, and music to enhance the action on screen. In it, Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio in easily his finest performance) is an explorer tasked with leading a group of soldiers and fur traders into the untamed Northern Black Mountains and back to the safety of an army fort. Complicating his standing within the group is a past history which follows him in the form of his part Native American son, Hawk (Forest Goodluck). When a group of warring Arikara (Ree) Native Americans attacks the group, a small band survives and heads down the Missouri River toward safety. Glass leads the group until he is severely mauled by a mother Grizzly bear. Among those surviving include Hawk, young trapper Bridger (Will Poulter), and rabble-rouser John Fitzgerald (an unrecognizable Tom Hardy) who commits an act setting up the film’s primary tale of revenge and its consequences.
DiCaprio sinks so far into Hugh Glass I forgot I was watching DiCaprio, something I’ve never experienced before. His character embodies the harsh reality of life on the edge of what some would call civilization. He is world wise, world weary, and world conquering all at once. The paradox of these characteristics codifies in the powerful final scene. DiCaprio finally lets go of his star persona and feels deeply the brokenness of his character. You’ll find no glitz or glamour here, only desperate survival depicted in its most grisly details. Hardy gives his third brilliant performance, thoroughly convincing as Fitzgerald. He is selfish and arrogant, but with a certain shrewdness making him dangerous to everyone who crosses paths with him. Poulter works well as a young soldier caught in circumstances he simply cannot fully understand or cope with. As Hawk, Goodluck shifts easily from frustration to anger to tenderness, showing this wide range in just a few scenes. He grounds the film and his character, along with his circumstance, become the moral center around which Iñárritu builds the story. Domhnall Gleeson, who starred in another small film this year, makes the most of his time as the honorable Captain Andrew Henry, who wants to make sure Glass is honored for his attempts to lead the trappers back home.
Iñárritu establishes himself as a singular directing talent, unique and masterful. I know of no other director who could so seamlessly mesh the ethereal elements of this film with its overt violence. While he gives himself breathing room at 156 minutes, the deliberate pace does not drag one bit. He and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki fill each frame with enough majestic views and philosophical renderings, all supported by excellent sound production, to keep the audience thinking about what has happened, what will happen, and what it all means. Though the script, co-written by Iñárritu and Mark L. Smith based on Michael Punke’s novel, focuses on action, not one word of dialogue is wasted, whether it be during scenes of heavy talking during the beginning and toward the end of the film, or in the more sparse dialogue in between. The themes come forward subtly at first, then become more open as the film goes on. While there are no real surprises in the action, surprises come in how each character interprets the action.
The spirit of this film comes from a tradition far removed from Western ideology. Like a revisionist Western, we interpret much of the brutality through the eyes of the native people. Glass has married a native girl, fathered a native son, and his experience gives him an extra sense of perception the other characters don’t have. In the same way, the Arikara war party kills mercilessly, but the explanation for their violence is both reasonable and honorable.
Like with “Birdman,” Iñárritu uses imagery to sear his ideas into his audience’s mind. Few could forget Glass holding his young son, who’s been gravely injured in an attack, or the Missouri River winding through its steep banks across a frozen landscape or the floating apparition of Glass’s wife hanging horizontally in the air above him, encouraging him to go on. It is these bits of magical realism which give “The Revenant” its true power. When combined with premiere acting, sublime cinematography, and powerful storytelling, I found in it a masterpiece which will stay with me for a long time.
In theaters now
