Revenent remake of "Man in the Wilderness" from the 70s

Rating: 7/10 (27 May 2016)

I liked this film, mostly, and I get where the director is coming from as he uses pictures to give us HIS impression of the cruelty of Nature. DeCaprio has been better in his other films in my view. Everything is so bleak, so damp, so dark and depressing the way the director shoots in the Wintertime without much color adds to this harsh view of Nature and of America's early struggles to settle the land. There is an intensity about this film, a mood that is pervasive and deeply negative and sad. Inarritu is no Nature lover and no lover of American history. He is clearly pointing the finger at the white man for the atrocities done to the wildlife, like the bloodbath scene where beavers corpses run red rivers of blood through the snow, and Indians whose ghostly appearance and homelessness add another visual argument against the settlers. Bart the Bear also takes some revenge against Americans through his/her vicious attack on DeCaprio/Glass. Those were some violent but intriguing scenes to watch.
But I thought Man in the Wilderness was soooo much better. And its message was far less political, more human, more pure survivalist, far more in depth character development. Rent it if you can. It's an oldy but goody. It's really interesting how similar the two protagonist's names are: Glass in Revenent and Bass in Man in the Wilderness.
The Nature in the older version is so stunningly beautiful that I still remember this 30 years later. I think this is more realistic than Inarritu's bleak pictures, and more dangerous. It's because Nature is so beautiful that people get themselves into trouble. The allure and distraction leads to letting one's guard down in a place that can easily kill you.