‘The Revenant’: Immerse yourself in cinema

If you haven't yet seen "The Revenant," you might consider taking a deep breath … and then going. Such intense filmgoing experiences don't come along every day. Anyway, following is a transcription of the film review that I wrote for Spokane Public Radio:

Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu believes in the immersive power of pure cinema. In films such as “Amores Perros,” the Oscar-winning “Birdman” and now “The Revenant,” González Iñárritu doesn’t just create a visual exploration of life. His intention seems more to pull viewers into the very cinematic experience he is presenting.

Based loosely on a true-life survival saga, “The Revenant” tells the story of Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio), a scout for an 1823 party of adventurers in search of beaver pelts. Having survived a murderous attack by a revenge-seeking Indian tribe, upset at the disappearance and presumed kidnapping of a chief’s daughter, the party abandons its riverboat and heads overland. Their hope is to stay ahead of the Indians while carrying as many pelts as possible back to their home trading post.

Not everyone agrees with this tactic, which Glass has proposed to party captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson). Chief among the critics is John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), whose ongoing complaints are aimed at both Glass and his half-Indian son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck). And Fitzgerald’s resentment flowers following one of the film’s most arresting sequences: a bear attack that leaves Glass badly broken and barely alive. Along with the party’s youngest member, Bridger (Will Poulter), Fitzgerald is tasked with attending Glass until he dies. Yet he waits barely a day before attempting to hurry Glass’ demise.

That he doesn’t succeed is what sets the rest of the film’s straightforward plotline in motion: Fitzgerald and an unsuspecting Bridger leave Glass for dead. But Glass will not die easily. As long as he breathes, he will fight. And so he does both, pulling himself across the open, snow-covered plains, through forests and over mountains, braving ice-crusted rivers to snatch food at every opportunity, dodging threats and taking advantage of every odd kindness he can.

All with one intent: to find the men who’d abandoned him, especially the one who killed the single thing Glass had left to love.

González Iñárritu co-wrote “The Revenant” with Mark L. Smith, adapting Michael Punke’s novel. And clearly he had a bigger intention than the subtitle Punke applied to his book: “a Novel of Revenge.” His attempt was to portray a story that, as he has said in interviews, “is beautifully savage, horrendously poetic and epic at the same time.”

Thus the film’s references to Native American spirituality, the themes of lost love, of parent-child connections, of genocide and the enduring human will to survive. In pursuing this thematic potpourri, González Iñárritu takes full advantage of the acting talents of DiCaprio and Hardy in particular, as well as Emmanuel Lubezki’s expressive cinematography, especially during the many scenes of graphic violence that are set against the expanse of nature provided mostly by the wintry Canadian landscapes of Alberta and British Columbia.

And while it’s possible to argue that, fueled by its magical-realistic overtones, “The Revenant” might not fully match González Iñárritu’s ambitions, it’s impossible to deny the visceral, visual power of what he has put on the screen – a power that feels more like you’ve been pulled directly into the screen instead of merely sitting in front of it.