Review: The Revenant

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Leo won an Oscar!! Yaaaayyyy!! Now the world is going to get much better, poverty will decrease, climate change will stop and I may finally get a girl! (Although I think the last one is the most improbable.)

Disclaimer: I am a huge Leo fan, having seen almost all of his movies including that dreadful experiment of his called ‘The Beach’ (what the heck was that!). Also, I was one of the few in my circle who was anticipating ‘The Revenant’ more than ‘Star Wars’ last year.

So, when Leo did get the golden statuette, and the movie released just 3 days prior to that in India (Why, Iñárritu! Why??), I decided to save my review till after I have actually seen the movie. And that I did yesterday… with style! Booked the largest possible screen in my city to get an ultimate movie going experience.

First thing first. I LOVED the movie! Wait. Wait. Wait. I loved the movie. But not for reasons the others love it. Let me explain.

When the movie starts, you are treated with one of the most magnificently shot raid scenes of all times. Every single other movie I ever saw in history tells you what it is like to look at the victim from the bowman’s view. This is the first movie which shows how it is like to see the arrow come and directly hit the one next to you. Its breathtakingly terrifying and a magically chilling experience. Inarritu wastes no time waking up the audience from the slumber. 10 points to team Revenant!!

And then the story kicks in… umm… well… sort of! I mean everyone who has watched atleast 50 movies, you can somehow predict what is the next scene might be. This is not ‘Gravity’ where you are sitting at the edge of the seat leaning forward. This is definitely not ‘The Hateful Eight’ where you have pin-drop silence in the theater throughout the movie. This is ‘The Revenant’ where you sit back in your comfy chair and let the jaw dropping visuals take you in… lets you breath with Hugh Glass and feel the chilly winds of Patagonia and Alaska.

And that is the whole movie in a nutshell. You get looming, ever pervasive close ups of the actors breathing, gasping, whimpering, running, fighting, chewing, biting, eating and even dying; interspersed with vast humongous mighty panoramas of the unforgivably gigantic vistas. A lone guy walking on a mighty glacier. Check. Some guys with torches among heavy woods? Check. Breathtaking views of a glacial river from atop a mountain? Check. Its all there. At a point of time, this movie ceases to be a movie. It almost feels like a David Attenborough documentary mixed with Bear Grylls’ Man vs Wild, topped with some impeccable cinematography to bring the might of the scenes in the most emphatic way possible on the silver screen. You are just greeted with A-B A-B shots of closeups and Panorama over and over again.

And that makes Iñárritu the Steve Jobs of cinema. Striking simple elements: Take the music for example. Just organic sounds of wind, woods and chimes with some flutes. Typical ‘native’ theme. No grand orchestra. No flashy electronics. Just back to basics raw earthy tones. Magnificent presentation: Give an award to the cinematographer already. Those sweeping low angle shots to those unbreaking continuous shots (by this time after Gravity and Birdman, I think there will be some patent somewhere in the annals of science of long unbreaking shots in the name of Iñárritu) drives the image into your brain to the point where you are no longer seeing someone on the screen, you are living, breathing, suffering with them. Those use of only natural light, those filming in real locations of Alaska and Patagonia with Alexa 65mm and those sweeping dynamic movie camera work, all come together to create a surreal experience on screen. And small moments which says everything without saying anything: That snow licking scene between Glass and the Indian, or the dragging of Glass to his grave by Fitzgerald, or even simple suspended wife of Glass midair above the mutilated body of his. This is poetry in motion. This is the studio saying “Jaa Alexandro jaa.. Just do whatever comes to your mind, however long it takes, however expensive it might be.. we are always with you.”

All that is good. But that is not to say this movie is perfect. Well, here goes my rant. Tom Hardy. Well, Tom Hardy is just in his ‘Bane’ mode without the mask. Those cold hollow maniacal stares and those brooding shots. He does it perfectly now, but Tom, after Warrior, The Dark Knight Rises, Locke, its time you try to act a little differently maybe??? Another problem is the story itself. Its paper thin and far less stake-worthy than the cinematogrphy demands (which is funny because more often than not, its the opposite). With this level of images, you should have Leo fighting the apocalypse or something.. not avenging murder of his kid!

And that brings me back to Leo. Yes, this was his hardest performance ever. Yes, he did a lot of struggle for this role, but I think if there was a movie for which Leo deserved the Oscar more, it is not definitely this one. This is Leo taking the imagery as an acting crutch. the close ups amplify his expressions, the sound system accentuates his moans and whimpers, and the low angles magnifies his suffering. This is not Samuel Jackson giving a monologue in Pulp Fiction, or Eddie Redmayne transforming into Stephen Hawking right in front of our eyes in the most seamlessly subtle way. This is a routine performance of a hugely talented, highly expereinced and extremely dedicated actor, which is somehow made great by the way it is shown (Its like having Morgan Freeman play God again.Sure he will beat the hell out the role, but would you say its his accomplishment?). Leo deserved an Oscar definitely for Blood Diamond, maybe even for Aviator or Shutter Island or Django Unchained, but I don’t think it was for The Revenant (Funnily enough, this year he got the award finally because of the same reason he always got snubbed everytime. Some one always made a standout movie. Just this year, it happened to be his.)

So, my verdict: Definitely see “The Revenant.”And while you are at it, book the biggest screen possible in your vicinity with the most emptiest theater possible (choose morning show or something). This movie demands your unwavering attention, and you don’t want two jerks making Bear Grylls comments right next to you!

PS: You might feel good for Leo. But, ladies and gentleman, meet Ennio Morricone who won his first oscar at the age of 87 after composing for 500 movies including A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966),Inglorious Basterds (2009), and a single, new piece for Django Unchained (2012).