Revenge and survival in a savage world: gory but gripping!

Rating: 8/10 (21 January 2016)

The story of The Revenant is pretty straightforward. A frontiersman, Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio), who is acting as guide to a group of fur-trappers, is attacked and seriously injured by a bear. The group's leader, Captain Henry (Domhnall Gleeson), decides to leave Glass to either recover or die while the rest of the party continue their journey to a distant outpost.
Glass is left in the care of a cynical trapper, Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), an inexperienced youngster, Jim, and Glass's own half-breed son, Hawk. After the main party's departure, Fitzgerald decides to finish Glass off but Hawk tries to stop him. In the ensuing struggle Hawk is killed. Fitzgerald then persuades Jim that Glass is dying and that they must abandon him for fear of Indian attack. They leave and eventually reach the outpost where they are reunited with Henry, telling him - untruthfully - they left after Glass had died.
Unbeknown to them, Glass gradually recovers from his terrible wounds and embarks on his quest for revenge on those who murdered his son and left Glass himself to die. Glass has become the 'revenant', one who 'returns from the dead.'
Set in the early 19th century amid the rivers and mountains of a wintry Montana, this tale of wrongs and revenge is fairly straightforward. But it is as much a story of survival in a brutal world in which violent death is a familiar prospect for human and animal alike. Hence we witness several graphically depicted scenes of bloody violence, the bear attack being one of the most gruesome and terrifyingly convincing. Here nature is 'red in tooth and claw', the spectre of Jack London (The Call of the Wild, To Build a Fire, etc.) hanging over the entire proceedings.
What lifts this movie out of the ordinary is Emmanuel Lubezki's superb cinematography which draws us into every scene. The mountain landscape in all its bleak wintry majesty resonates perfectly with the kill-or-die ethos of the living creatures that struggle to live there. Yet the story is laced with moments of spirituality and hints of transcendence; Glass has visions of his dead wife and lingering skyward shots of silent towering trees point us to whatever - if anything - that lies above and beyond.
If you look too closely at this tale you see that Glass is an improbably durable man, surviving what in reality would be impossible circumstances. But so spell-binding is the combined effects of the visuals, the music and the acting that we willingly suspend our disbelief, at least until we emerge from the movie theatre and return to the reality of daily life.
Leonardo DiCaprio is little short of magnificent as Glass, ably supported by Tom Hardy and Domhnall Gleeson. Both DiCaprio and the director, Alejandro Inarritu, look well-deserving of awards for this stunningly atmospheric movie. Recommended - but be prepared for blood and guts!
Viewed at HOME (successor to The Cornerhouse), Manchester, UK, 17th January 2016.