Disclaimer: If this posts seems like it came out of nowhere after months of radio silence and without any context, you are right. A more insightful elaboration of my absence is on its way, soon. Also, the following text is not free from any spoilers, so proceed with caution.
The Revenant: A Story of (In)Humanity
The tagline for Alejandro Iñárritu's latest work, The Revenant, reads "Blood Lost. Life Found". Although up for interpretation, these small phrases signal to two concepts at work throughout the film: violence and survival. Set in early nineteenth century North-America, and following the story of Hugh Glass, a hunter on a fur trading expedition, the film turns to violence fairly quickly. Early on, Glass is brutally attacked by a bear, and subsequently left for dead by other members of his hunting team. The attack which leaves little to the imagination signals one thing to the audience very quickly: this film is not for the fainthearted.
Blood being lost-and a significant amount for that- Glass finds himself still alive and with only one goal: vengeance. This is where the tagline becomes tricky. Although survival is one of the main themes in the film, Glass is not spurred on by a simple will to live. For someone like him who has nothing left to lose, survival is just a means to an end. After the bear-attack left him half-dead, he was not just presented with life in a literal sense, but figeratively speaking, the fate that had befallen him gave him a reason to go on. The shedding of blood thus gave him a purpose to live.
Following Glass on his journey on the fringes of life and death, The Revenant can be called a very human film, dealing with one of the most basic principles of humanity: survival. On the other hand it calls attention to the inhumanity that dominated life in 1820s North-America. After all, cold, ice, and grizzly bears are not the only forces of nature which constantly threaten the life of Glass, or that of anyone else in the film. Hostile Native American groups, as well as rivalling French fur traders pose a constant threat to Glass, and as he has found out, so do those he thought he could trust.
For all its rawness and brutality, the film also evokes one very simple pleasure: that of aesthetically pleasing imagery. This is all thanks to the awe-inspiring cinematography courtesy of Emmanuel Lubezki. The film being shot by the use of natural light, it is not hard to appreciate the mastery of the craft that went into the making of the film. Furthermore, the film seems to be layed out so minutely, every shot being carefully considered, arriving as it were at precisely the right time.
What this all adds up to is a neatly striked balance. On the one hand, The Revenant forcefully makes you want to look away, as it confronts you with an uncensored account of violence. On the other hand there are moments when it fixes your gaze on the screen, presenting very forceful images of beauty in their simplest form. As much as The Revenant might be called a visceral expierence, it should be pointed out that the film also includes the occasional nodd to something higher, more spiritual. If anything, it is these scenes that flesh out the film's deeper meaning a bit more.
Nominated for an impressive total of twelve Academy Awards, Iñárritu's film is certainly getting the sparks of attention it deserves. Whether it wins or loses seems of little concern, for The Revenant is not one to easily forget. If anything, it accounted for one of the most special experiences in the cinema that I have ever had.
