When I was leaving the library yesterday afternoon, I noticed The Revenant was available, so I checked it out. I was eager to see it, having found no one who would go to the theater with me when it was out. Late last night I watched it alone, and disappointment and disillusion were the main emotions I felt - presuming this film made me feel anything.
The Revenant is the cinematic equivalent of a late Henry James novel or a Faulkner novel. James and Faulkner (and Cormac McCarthy, for that matter) both wrote long, meandering, garden path sentences, often a paragraph long, and these monstrous sentences formed the bulk of their prose. The result? Their novels are tiresome to read, and any interesting or moving ideas are buried within the prose. The Revenant is much like this.
I think at this point everyone knows the "plot" of the film: Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) is left for dead after a bear attack, so he recovers in the wilderness and seeks revenge. The bear attack looked real - in fact, the violence throughout was realistic - but there was no emotion. The attack happens early in the film, and there has been no effort prior to it to develop or reveal anything about his character. We see some interesting flashbacks in Glass's imagination that involve his (presumed) wife and his son as a baby; there is some thought-provoking imagery involving stacked bones and soldiers burning huts. Honestly, I found the story hinted at in the flashbacks far more interesting than the blandness that was supposed to pass for a story within the main narrative.
That being said, the two women in the movie occupy perhaps the most boring cliches possible: the dead wife, who always appears in Glass's imagination with a smile and wind blowing her long hair; and a nameless woman whom Glass rescues while she is being raped. Neither of them have lines, other than Glass repeating some stoic proverb the wife told him long ago about trees and strength. And it is this stoicism that pervades the characterization of the Native Americans.
The Native American actors in the film don't do anything other than: attack white people, trade with the French, be stoic. That's it. They serve no other purpose than to evoke pity. I found this insulting and gross, especially when compared to films like Dances with Wolves or Last of the Mohicans. None of them even have names. I have no idea why this film was touted as being sympathetic to Native Americans when they essentially fulfill a "How, White Man" stereotype that has plagued Westerns for far too long.
Writer and director Alejandro Inarritu relies on similar camera work in his other Oscar-winning film Birdman: every scene is a series of long tracking shots that sweep across the scenery and the actors in a broad, focus-less way. There is no focal point to most of the scenes; you as the audience are expected to take in these long, sweeping shots and absorb everything without any clue as to what you should be watching. As a result, there is almost no emotion in this film - well, no genuine emotion. There are a few forced scenes with Glass mourning his son and dead wife, but, as a film without character development or story, it left me cold and slightly irritated. I cared next to nothing about any of the characters, let alone the protagonist.
I am convinced Inarritu has no idea how to film action, nor how to create tension in a scene. The film opens with Glass and Son (he only calls him "Son" throughout in some kind of attempt at being McCarthy-lite) are stoically hunting a deer, then it sharply contrasts with the Americans' dirty camp. About 90 seconds into the film is a violent attack from Native Americans, but it may be the dullest action scene I have ever seen in a movie. There is no emotion, nothing at stake. You have no idea who the characters are, so you really don't care whether anyone lives or dies. And, unlike Last of the Mohicans, you don't have the Native Americans' perspective on the attack; all you know is that white people are in jeopardy.
The music was horrible. I think I counted about four different notes used throughout the entire "score," if "score" is not too generous a word, and there was a great deal of percussion, as in Birdman. While the percussion - and camera work, for that matter - served Birdman well, it actually hurt The Revenant. The music should elevate the story, not reinforce its blandness.
The acting was so-so. Although, to be fair, the actors had little substantive material to work with. As a Leo fan, I felt nothing but dismay knowing he finally won his Oscar for this. He does little besides look angry and cold. The Wolf of Wall Street was a tour-de-force; this was just an exercise in wild dedication, like eating the bison liver. Tom Hardy is difficult to understand, but I thought he gave a performance the movie deserved, which brings me to another point.
The word "fuck" was not used as a swear word or intensifier until the early 20th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Yet, Tom Hardy's character says it all the time. That irritated me to no end.
The one good thing I can say about this movie is the cinematography was exquisite. Emmanuel Lubezki deserved his Oscar; in fact, he was the only person from this film who truly earned his awards. The photography was beautiful and did bring some desperately needed richness to an otherwise lackluster production.
When the race for the Oscars grew more contentious and the world seemed to be pulling for Leonardo DiCaprio to finally get his due, I had remarked rather cynically that the Academy would reward Eddie Redmayne because his film The Danish Girl was more politically correct. Having now seen both films, I must retract that statement. Eddie may have been the more deserving one after all.
Grade: C
