Captivating and Consequent, A Masterpiece!

Rating: 9/10 (13 January 2016)

This movie has such a strong pulling effect that the moment it starts you feel like physically dragged into the woods accompanying the hero on his long, agonizing way to find the man who hideously killed his son.
The eye of the beholder or more precisely, the camera is smoothly flowing around the characters and often comes so close to them that the lens gets fogged by their breath, it's almost "pornographic" in terms of how close the director wants to show us everything so that you feel the urge to look away, the blood, the sweat, it's literally palpable, the pain the hero must have sustained while being lacerated by a huge bear you're able to feel on your own skin, it's simply awe-inspiring. Sometimes it appears as if there are no cuts like it's happening in real time, extraordinary!
Inarritu once again proved that he is a visionary cinematographer and a true artist on par with Terrence Malick just (luckily) more grounded in linear story telling, the style never overlaps the substance like it was the case with Malick's "Tree of Life" where you could get lost in imagery. Sure the story itself is rather simple, it's about survival and revenge, more or less typical blockbuster themes,"The Revenant" could easily have turned into a second "Rambo" or Liam Neeson fighting wolves in the wilderness, yet it became an ambitious and authentic epos with a kind of documentary and simultaneously artistic approach and a pulsating score.
I'm not sure whether all this panting and screaming by DiCaprio is more challenging and therefore worthier of an Oscar than let's say his brilliant performance of a complex character like Howard Hughes in "Aviator" for example which means that he should already have gotten one as he is a fabulous actor, Tom Hardy as his treacherous antagonist played a slightly more diverse character and was slightly more interesting so that he definitely should get the Oscar for the Best Supporting Role.
"The Revenant" playing in a snow covered wilderness will make you shiver with cold for exactly the right reasons as it is a masterpiece.