{"id":17508,"date":"2016-02-08T16:22:09","date_gmt":"2016-02-08T20:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=17508"},"modified":"2016-02-08T17:10:40","modified_gmt":"2016-02-08T21:10:40","slug":"alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu-the-revenant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2016\/02\/08\/alejandro-gonzalez-inarritu-the-revenant\/","title":{"rendered":"Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu: The Revenant<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Revenant<\/strong><\/span>\r\n<\/em>d. Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu (2015)<\/span><\/pre>\n
Filmed largely in unspoiled parts of Canada in a narrow daily winter window affording natural light, The Revenant<\/em> certainly\u00a0effects\u00a0a suitable 1820s western vibe\u00a0(to the layman at least; I\u2019m no scholar of the period).\u00a0It also\u00a0does a great job of evincing a sense of estrangement, volatile dread,\u00a0and alienation. The harsh splendour of the environment is arguably the main protagonist: these\u00a0are vast, unfathomable stretches of bleakly beautiful wilderness, amid which man, inevitably,\u00a0can only foolishly squabble and skirmish. It’s Cormac McCarthy territory.<\/p>\n
\"The<\/p>\n
Director\u00a0Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu makes fine use of his locations. The bleached-out winter sun drapes the central characters (fractious and tentative\u00a0fur-trappers led by Domnhall Gleeson and including Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, and Will Poulter) in icy gold. They’ve plenty to distract them from the unforgiving conditions: they\u2019re unceasingly harried\u00a0by hunger,\u00a0the elements, and a pursuing mob of Indians. The latter are seeking their Chief\u2019s kidnapped daughter; this confrontation, between Indian Americans and scavenging colonists, will intermittently play out and finally conclude the film. For the rest of the duration we witness DiCaprio and his half-Indian son bear the brunt of Tom Hardy\u2019s mercenary disregard, and the eventual, unlikely reprisals.<\/p>\n
We first find our wild bunch of primitive entrepreneurs under siege, and they take a fair few\u00a0terminal\u00a0hits, the survivors\u00a0barely\u00a0fleeing the arriving avengers\u00a0by boat. A strategic decision is taken by DiCaprio’s character, Hugh Glass — opposed by Hardy — to ditch the boat and cut another, less exposed routeback to their hamlet\u00a0with their prized clutch of animal hides. But as they pitch up for the night on their alternate route home, DiCaprio, wandering into the woods, is savaged\u00a0by a bear\u00a0(a horribly detailed and authentically created attack). He somehow\u00a0survives\u00a0being rigorously chewed over\u00a0and picked at\u00a0and, as the motley band\u00a0make their sluggish passage onward, lugging their prone number across barely-negotiable terrain, they reach\u00a0an impasse. Unable to carry their critically-maimed cohort\u00a0up the precarious, disintegrating side of a hillside,\u00a0and reasonably\u00a0expectant of his imminent demise, they arrange for someone to stay behind until the moment arrives and provide dignified burial. Unfortunately for DiCaprio, those\u00a0presiding over\u00a0his mangled and moribund body include Hardy, who will shortly kill the son (as DiCaprio watches) and dupe Will Poulter\u2019s naive underling into believing the Indians are on their way, hastening a departure that leaves DiCaprio, too debilitated to speak of what he\u2019s seen, to a certain death.<\/p>\n
Hardy and Poulter return home, the latter by now aware of the betrayal, and stick to their story, assuming DiCaprio is doomed regardless. Poulter refuses the extra pay offered for his hanging back and broods. Hardy, certain DiCaprio is dead anyway, is soon boozing it up.<\/p>\n
But of course DiCaprio’s blood-and-mud smeared wraith\u00a0lives, slowly rehabilitating, sewing up flapping wounds and plugging throat-holes that squirt water, narrowly evading recapture, gradually strengthening for inevitable vengeance. He drags himself through and across the perilous miles between him and his nemesis, is saved once more, saves the captured Indian\u00a0daughter, and eventually stumbles into the path of the men who believed him dead. Hardy has already bolted, but is soon found (with swift ease, so it seemed) and the\u00a0final\u00a0reckoning ensues.<\/p>\n
The performances are uniformly great, but Domnhall Gleeson, excellent in Ex Machina<\/em>, feels out of place here. He\u2019s a fine actor who seems to be in everything at the moment, and he does an admirable job\u00a0but,\u00a0as with Star Wars<\/em>,\u00a0doesn\u2019t pervade the requisite amount of testosterone or disquieted, spoiled masculinity to carry off such a role. He\u2019s never the character: he\u2019s always Domnhall Gleeson in 1820s getup. Will Poulter doesn\u2019t suffer the same fate:\u00a0Poulter\u00a0has one of\u00a0those\u00a0faces\u00a0(a shame he\u2019s no longer to play Pennywise in Cary Fukunaga\u2019s aborted reboot of IT<\/em>), and delivers a never-questionable portrayal of a gauche, nervy kid with integrity. DiCaprio is exceptional, although delivers nothing new (he doesn\u2019t have to \u2013\u00a0he\u2019s always been vastly under-rated and\u00a0mastered all these moves, albeit less beardfully, twenty years ago in This Boy\u2019s Life<\/em>, What\u2019s Eating Gilbert Grape<\/em>, and Basketball Diaries<\/em>). Tom\u00a0Hardy is perhaps the standout, though: gruffly vacillating, querulously nasty and entirely convincing.<\/p>\n
Director\u00a0I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u00a0continues his\u00a0favoured\u00a0theme on\u00a0a grander\u00a0scale: individuals\u00a0only\u00a0matter\u00a0to themselves, and only as part of a community can anyone wrangle a meaningful existence. Set to these kinds of backdrop that message is diminished\u00a0rather than emphasised. In capturing the heartlessly eloquent landscape he merely serves to accentuate the paucity of these men, the best of which, at the end,\u00a0revenge mission complete,\u00a0is left with nothing (\u201cAll I have left is that boy.\u201d)\u00a0but to ponder those mountains and lakes and skies\u00a0and his own misery and settled scores\u00a0to no end. He is utterly broken, redemption seemingly impossible. There is resolution but no hope, and the film doesn\u2019t\u00a0linger\u00a0in the memory beyond the recollection of well-executed set-pieces. Unlike with the aforementioned Cormac McCarthy, there is no magic, no poetry, no numinous sense of unseen forces at work. There are no real polarities, perhaps due to a lack of\u00a0depth. These are rough-hewn protagonists of no real substance: we get only their sharp edges\u00a0and only\u00a0the brilliance of the performances\u00a0brings them close to life; not quite close enough\u00a0to inject the emotional charge lacking. We see DiCaprio in flashback as a doting family man, but such\u00a0spliced\u00a0moments don’t do enough to counterpoint\u00a0the\u00a0dismal and unrelenting savagery. I\u00f1\u00e1rritu seems eager to spend time at the end of tethers, and for that and the lack of substantive interiority the film’s longevity will suffer. The landscape will always win: there is little succor in DiCaprio\u2019s relatively small victory.\u00a0We don\u2019t know enough about him beyond placeholder images to invest in his character; we are hurtled into prolonged chaos before we\u00a0can truly feel anything other than cosmetic awe.<\/p>\n
Films such as The Revenant<\/em> can run only so far on vitriol\u00a0and evocative panache.\u00a0There has to be something human\u00a0and full-blooded\u00a0to distinguish the film from its symbolic aspirations. Comparative examples, though less technically interesting or visually assured, such as The Outlaw Josey Wales<\/em>, Jeremiah Johnson<\/em>, or even\u00a0The Last of the Mohicans<\/em>, feel richer and much more immersive than this often spectacular but ultimately cold exercise.<\/p>\n
So\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0left with\u00a0a brilliantly executed minor film, vastly entertaining but ultimately\u00a0as remote as the locations. The philosophy, a worldview that worked so well in the\u00a0dark, cosseted\u00a0warmth of\u00a0Birdman<\/em>\u2019s theater as an interesting means of looking at performance, legacy, belonging,\u00a0and identity, seems a little lost and a little facile here.\u00a0There are no real non-stylistic risks taken. There is supremely impressive camerawork (a fairly astounding sequence on horseback; a Saving Private Ryan<\/em>-bettering siege full of blood-flowered water\u00a0and harrowing violence, twanging arrows and jolting verisimilitude; the aforementioned bear confrontation), and\u00a0I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u00a0and cinematographer\u00a0Emmanuel Lubezki\u00a0fully deserve inevitable Oscars (as do DiCaprio and Hardy).\u00a0But there is unquestionably something missing.\u00a0The Revenant<\/em> is a better sum of parts than a whole.<\/p>\n
When, during the last scene, DiCaprio is spared in recognition of a prior deed, and passed over rather than vanquished, the escape is meant to be a resounding moment of karmic rapprochement, but is instead\u00a0bittersweet; a man who doesn\u2019t really want to live must contend with having to, after all. It\u2019s a grim and hopeless\u00a0vision, an entirely transactional world that our soul-sick protagonist must now\u00a0endure. You wonder why\u00a0I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u00a0went to such lengths to say so little\u00a0so\u00a0loudly. It doesn\u2019t\u00a0really\u00a0reverberate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lee takes on Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu’s latest film, the Oscar-nominated The Revenant<\/em>. Read the full post<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":17509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[707,799],"tags":[],"coauthors":[516],"class_list":["post-17508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alexander-gonzalez-inarritu","category-film-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/The-Revenant-Poster.jpg?fit=1320%2C2048&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-4yo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17508"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17514,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17508\/revisions\/17514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17508"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=17508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}