Review: The Revenant

Alejandro Iñárritu seems to have come out of nowhere, having only directed a handful of movies before he dropped 2014's excellent Birdman, an experimental masterpiece that gleefully played with many film conventions like toys. His new film, The Revenant, was met with a fairly large amount of hype that I'm glad to say was completely justified.

The Premise

Based on a true story, The Revenant follows Hugh Glass, a fur trapper and navigator in the historical Rocky Mountain Fur Company. After their camp is laid to waste by the Native Arikara Tribe the survivors flee into the wilderness and attempt to return to their outpost; Glass is viciously mauled by a bear and the party debates his ultimate fate. Left for dead in the dead of winter, Glass is forced to navigate an unforgiving path while barely remaining one step ahead of the Arikara who want him dead and desperately search for the man who ruined his life.

The Evening Redness

While The Revenant itself is based on a book (which in turn is based on true events), the tone of the film reminds me of a different Western tale taking place in the 19th century. With its long, stark description of a sprawling wilderness, shocking depictions of brutal violence and heavy religious imagery, The Revenant takes (likely unintentionally) cues from Cormac McCarthy's Western masterpiece novel Blood Meridian. If asked before seeing The Revenant I would have said very emphatically that Blood Meridian was unfilmable--a work that could only exist as literature and nothing more. The Revenant has shaken that belief pretty heavily, to a point where I'd actually be very excited to see an Iñárritu-helmed film adaptation of McCarthy's work.

Very few films handle symbolism as well as The Revenant. The plot is less important than the experience of the protagonist: when we see his feverish nightmares, the point of each scene is less the impact to the plot and more of what we learn of this fictional version of Hugh Glass. Tormented by visions of his wife and wrestling with his faith, the audience grows to understand both his struggles as well as the viewer's interpretation of each carefully-placed symbol. I won't give any away, but more than a few scenes have left such a profound impact on me that I'm still puzzling away at not only what it meant to the character, but what it means to me. This kind of expertly-crafted writing alongside such striking visuals are very strongly something I'd consider art, and The Revenant is oozing with such talent.

Although it's been a major advertising point of the film, the specific filming method really does deserve mention. The lighting conditions add a subtle layer to the movie; nights look impenetrably dark and the brights, where the sun glares down on endless blinding whiteness, are stark and mesmerizing. The lighting isn't the only striking film technique in The Revenant. The camera work is often very slow, panning carefully across scenes to truly give breadth to every moment. That said, one criticism I would give is that due to the slow pacing of the film it can really feel its two-and-a-half-hour length. Every scene is essential to the overall experience but in retrospect many of the long takes feel like they linger a bit too long.

Regardless of the pacing the camera is very deliberate in its movements; even the famous bear scene calmly sticks to one angle before slowly panning around. The long takes and slow camera movement gives the film a distinct style which, while not as jaw-dropping as the apparent single-shot style as Birdman, works shockingly well for a movie as brutal and shocking as this. For instance, one scene may begin barely in focus somewhere in the sky and the camera will slowly sweep down directly onto a wandering character or group, pan over to an intimate shot of another character in the middle of dialogue, then continue panning down to focus on something like a stream or waterfall. For those of you who might take something from this analogy: if Birdman was Iñárritu's long, paranoid constant stream-of-consciousness Sound and the Fury, The Revenant is his far more accessible, larger-scaled As I Lay Dying. The style is very similar, but there are distinct merits to both.

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It should be noted that the film is very deserving of its R rating. There are big comparisons to be made between The Revenant and The Hateful Eight, another Western-themed film from this year (and one which you can read my review of on this very site) which is also noteworthy for its subject matter. These two films cannot be any different in almost every single way, but I want to point out the difference with gore and violence--a point which gave me a bit of annoyance with The Hateful Eight. With The Revenant the gore is very horrific in its own way; whereas Tarantino's recent film featured blood exploding everywhere and splattering all over the scenery, this film is soft-spoken about its brutal displays of violence and I found it much more tasteful. Even when some characters are completely torn open with bone and sinew exposed, the film never glorifies its violence. It comes off as a natural consequence of the horrific scenarios the characters are placed in, and it's not merely aimed at Leonardo DiCaprio and his (overly) dedicated suffering. The movie is very graphic in all aspects, from the environment to animal-based gore and even a scene of sexual assault. Unlike The Hateful Eight none of these intense depictions could have been taken out without impacting the film in any way. If you're sensitive to gore you might want to be cautious in going to see this movie, although I'd also tell you to get over yourself and go see it anyway.


Based on a Novel Based on a Tale Based on a True Story

The Revenant has nearly nothing in common with the tale it is based on, so please don't assume you're going to be taking away a sort of documentary experience from the film. Before writing off the film's deceptive marketing let me be the first to tell you this movie is far more interesting than the real story of Hugh Glass, not in small part due to the fact that some very heavy thought was put into creating a plot about revenge with its own symbolism and period-specific historical details.

Hugh Glass did not, as far as I can tell, have a Native American wife. Fitzgerald, the arguable protagonist played magnificently by Tom Hardy, was not a man bearing a grudge against natives undergoing a moral crisis. I've pondered whether or not it is dishonest to credit this as being based on true events and have come to an objectively correct opinion: The Revenant only benefits from the historical embellishments added to the plot. No, you're not going to be getting a heavily fact-checked version of true events confined to a two-hour running time. Instead The Revenant chooses to present a message, a story of subjective morality which never would have happened if it was simply the true story.

The film's poster acknowledges this perfectly: "Inspired by true events," and there aren't too many other words I would use to describe The Revenant than simply inspired.

The Verdict

The Revenant is not going to be for everyone. The film is over two hours long and sometimes feels its length, thanks in part to its slow pacing as well as its brutal subject matter. Not many films have successfully presented a tale so brutally honest in its attempt to create a hardened tale of survival and morality, but with a cast that truly brings out their characters (no really, I cannot do justice in describing how perfectly Tom Hardy fills the role of Fitzgerald) and the immaculate directing of Alejandro Iñárritu The Revenant drags itself through hell and back to create one of the finest, most hard-hitting movies in recent years. Your mileage may vary, but at the moment I have no clue how film could possibly top this for the rest of the year.