I SAW THE REVENANT FOR A SECOND TIME TODAY. THIS IS MY IMPRESSION.
Upon second viewing of The Revenant I’m struck by the fact that it has much more in common with director Alejandro G. Inñáritu’s older work like Babel then it does with his more recent Oscar winner Birdman. The general theme of it is similar and just as dark as Babel, and to put it simply: The human race sucks. They will do ungodly things to each other, and the things around them, but also can survive in the most desperate situations. It’s a boxing match between the human animal, and the human spirit. This all really occurred to me the second time watching the film because there’s a lot of other stuff in The Revenant to look at and see then the surface. Even though that’s pretty cool. Inñáritu’s film’s always have a metaphorical sense to them, and the first time (and probably all the times) that many people are going to see it they will watch the film for the sense of visceral, brutal, and bloody combat and the will to survive. That’s all well and good (the first time I watched the film I had the fun of parading from money shot to money shot), but it’s almost implored that you look under the surface here. Sure, that’s true of every movie, but especially poignant in films that are for all intensive purposes roller coasters of survival. What else is going to make them interesting? Eventually the visceral sense has to wear off...not that it does in The Revenant. The use of tracking shots, and choreography create a sense that the world the characters are living in is a place where nobody is good, and once I realized that I had more fun with the dynamics. Getting into the mindset that this is a different type of story being told where there’s not real protagonist, or antagonist just people trying to survive no matter what, some just with better intentions, than others, is a difficult place to put an audience, but once you get there the film is a better experience. Especially because by the ending Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) completely denies all of this, and turns against the conditions that the movie has set up. He leaves it behind creating his fulfilling arch. The Revenant by the way is about Hugh Glass, a frontiersman, who is left for dead by one of his comrades Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) after Glass is attacked by a bear. Fitzgerald on top of that kills Glasse’s son, and basically buries Glass alive. Glass is tasked with returning to civilization with a broken leg, and many other injuries to kill Fitzgerald. Of course that’s not all it’s about though because as in earlier paragraphs I just realed against looking at it just in that way, but still that’s the basic plot. The rest of it has to do with the people, and situations that Glass encounters on his journey only to further prove that humans suck. The result is rousing and interesting above all using violence for the sake of violence to prove utterly that people just do this stuff, and that’s just the way they are. It’s more fun to look at it the “violence is cool” way here, and I wouldn’t blame anyone who thought about it that way. The film is really served to you as a roller coaster of violent survival situations being bookended by two of the greatest fight scenes ever put to film. That’s actually enough too. The film almost seems like a variation on the Mad Max: Fury Road story school. Take simple story, and stretch it out through the cool stuff that happens while also having something to say. The Revenant comes out on top in that game because it’s simply more exciting to watch. Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography is probably some of the best ever achieved, and ever more impressive in natural lighting. Leonardo DiCaprio is intense, but seemless as Glass in a performance of little words, and Tom Hardy creates an excellent “pure evil, but also too much of an idiot to realize character”. This is a showcase for everyone aboard and a brutal look at human beings. Great film though. I give The Revenant a 10 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |