The Revenant

Mountain Masochism

If there’s one film that will make you appreciate your central heating on a chilly January evening it’s The Revenant. Based on the true story of nineteenth century fur trapper Hugh Glass and his astonishing tale of survival after being mauled by a grizzly bear, the film is something of an endurance test for the viewer as we follow this hardiest of hunters through all manner of trials and tribulations in sub-zero temperatures across the harshest of untamed wilderness.

Despite the ‘Mountain Men’ – as the trappers, scouts and frontiersmen of the old American west became collectively known – being integral to the history and indeed the very conception of North America as we know it today, many will be ignorant of the myths and legends surrounding them.
Hollywood itself has rarely tackled the subject matter. Save a few low end offerings in the late seventies and early eighties, the only film of any note about these unique men who blazed trails through America’s wild country is Sydney Pollack’s Jeremiah Johnson, screened at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival and eventually becoming something of a cult classic (and as such comes highly recommended as an adjunct to The Revenant).

With this in mind, The Revenant could be seen as laden with all manner of risk for director and screenwriter Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, especially after his recent success with the critically acclaimed Birdman. However, Inarritu has managed to corral some big time players such as Tom Hardy, Dominhall Gleeson and Leonardo DiCaprio, who takes the main role. This star power alone has helped propel the film’s early momentum and has led to The Revenant being tipped for a clean sweep at the Oscars later next month.

Far from being a walk in the national park to get within touching distance of Academy wampum however, production was notoriously troubled, with Inarritu adamant about shooting his scenes in natural environments and on location. After unseasonal conditions led to insufficient amounts of snow in Alberta, Canada, the whole enterprise had to be moved to Patagonia in order to chase the white stuff. Meanwhile crew members quit and budgetary requirements soared.

Kudos to the director then, for sticking it out because The Revenant truly benefits from this commitment to realism. The film is a visual feast and much of its power and impact comes from the sheer majesty of the scenery, expertly brought to life by director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki. Vistas of ice covered rivers, snow-capped mountains and luminous green forests combine to form an almost pre-historic landscape, begging to be seen on the big screen.

The authenticity extends to every aspect of the film’s design too with the actor’s outfits, tools, wares and dialogue all adding to a heightened sense of reality and painting a vivid picture of what such a life must have been like.

The director doesn’t shy away from giving an up close and personal view of the primal brutality of the era either, and from the nerve-jinglingly-intense opening set piece (worth the price of admission alone) through to the old fashioned, hatchet infused showdown; there will be blood, guts and frozen snot a-plenty. Some may be turned off by what could be considered overly gratuitous violence, yet most will see an incredibly accurate depiction of a period in history where the only the toughest survived, often of course through extremely violent means.

It is one of the more immersive cinematic experiences of recent years and indeed, Inarritu on a few occasions even oversteps the mark by literally placing his camera a little too close to the action, breaking the forth wall by fogging his lens on his actor’s breath. Though we can understand the director’s intention, this only really serves to pull us momentarily away from the spell of the movie, diminishing its impact briefly. It’s a flashy filmic technique that stands at odds with the otherwise superb imagery.

For a good portion of the running time it’s DiCaprio’s contorted face which is the sole subject of this intimate camerawork, with the actor taking responsibility for largely carrying the film (along with a heavy looking bear hide) on his shoulders. It is a toweringly physical and game performance, with DiCaprio proving he is willing to suffer for his art; crawling through dirt, plunging into freezing rapids and getting quite familiar with a horse corpse, in order to convince as a man with an indefatigable instinct to survive.

It has to be said, certain areas of the story have been embellished to create more of an emotional pull, such as Glass’ adoption of a Pawnee boy called Hawk (debutant Forrest Goodluck) and a past relationship with a native-American woman. Oddly, even with these additions, our empathy for the character’s spiritual upheaval never reaches the depths that were perhaps intended, but rather our concern remains rooted in Glass’ worldly turmoil and suffering. In this way Dicaprio’s interpretation of Glass is strangely devoid of emotion, despite the actor’s best efforts.

Being the focus of Glass’ revenge, Tom Hardy may actually turn in a more complete performance as Thomas Fitzpatrick, the man who leaves Glass for dead after his fateful run-in with the bear. Sporting a disfiguring scalp wound, darting eyeballs and a molasses-thick accent Hardy is utterly believable as a thoroughly tough individual who has seen enough of his own hardship to want to cash out and escape the frontier life. Though not a good man, Hardy’s Fitzpatrick is less of an embodiment of evil than a product of his unforgiving environment; a chancer, who believes that survival necessitates looking after oneself above all else.

Between Glass and Fitzpatrick’s opposing attitudes The Revenant, to its detriment, attempts to entertain a rather weak religious sentimentality. On the one hand we have Fitzpatrick recounting a tale about his father finding God in the form of a squirrel before he ‘shot and ate that sonofabtich’, and on the other Glass’ eleventh hour epiphany about how ‘revenge is in the hands of the creator’. By the close it’s clear Inarritu is explicitly championing Glass’ meek outlook as an elevating cure-all for the savagery which sits at the heart of every man, but of course this ends up feeling like a bit of a cheap ploy to elicit reverence in the character, especially when for the previous one hundred and twenty minutes the film has gone to great pains to so triumphantly portray nature as red in tooth and claw.

One wonders if DiCaprio will be able to act in Glass’ example if he doesn’t bag the gong. Then again, Glass would have probably taken the Grizzly over the savagery of the Academy Awards any day.