Sometimes I write things that aren't rants. Sometimes they are writs. And by writs I mean reviews.
The Revenant: Grab Breath
Leonardo DiCaprio won his first Oscar taking on the role of legendary frontiersman Hugh Glass, in the remarkable film, The Revenant. The movie based in the 1820’s Wyoming Rocky Mountains, in and of itself was beautifully made, making use of all natural lighting and the breathtaking wilderness scenes accompanying Calgary and Alberta, Canada, as well the trip to Argentina during shooting. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu also picked up an Oscar for a second year in a row for Best Directer. The film came with its woes though, as DiCaprio and Inarritu fought blistering weather, crew defections, and ironically, a lack of snow for needed scenes, but the issues did not in the least tarnish the final product. In fact, the brutal filming conditions most certainly added to its overall authenticity.
Glass, in history is often overshadowed by the larger than life Jim Bridger, who also plays a role in the film as a strapping young fur trapper played by Will Poulter who is portrayed selflessly sacrificing his time and safety to look after the incapacitated Glass after a terrifyingly realistic bear mauling scene. But it is once Glass comes to, that his unprecedented pathway into legendary status unfolds. Although the fact that the heavy driver of the film, the murder of Hawk (Forest Goodluck), Glass’s half-Pawnee son by John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) is historically inaccurate, the immenseness of the film and the portrayal of the indomitable human spirit against all odds is tenaciously awe-inspiring making a little creative license largely forgivable.
The film is truly gritty, hard hitting, and it’s immersive illustration of the dangerously beautiful frontiers life makes the modern day viewer’s eye scarcely wander from the screen over the span of its near three hour long run. Maulings aside, we follow Glass gruelingly clawing his way from beyond the grave, to outmaneuvering the incessant barrage of arrows whizzing past his head at any given moment to hurdling off cliffs, diving into freezing cold rapids, and TaunTaun-ing it up by settling into the hollowed out cavity the warm corpse of his stolen horse provides, all to hunt down and exact revenge on Fitzgerald. And of which, true to life upon finding him, spares him the death he deserves, albeit after an epic and gory slash and hack fight scene. The Natives, though, make an appearance at this point and make short work of Fitzgerald while somberly making their way passed Glass, finally allowing him the breath he needs to begin to make peace with all he’s been through.
Despite attacks on character development the underlying tone of the film whispers from the dust through the masterfully incorporated vision scenes where Glass, in his agony beholds his lost and beautiful Pawnee wife(Grace Dove). She comes to him at his lowest moments, in one scene hovering horizontally over his beleaguered and beaten body while he wept alone and destitute, her dress whipping in the wind through the overcast and mountainous gray light. She says, “As long as you can still grab breath, you fight.”