The Revenant (2016) Movie Review

The Timeless Trials of Cold Beauty

          Loglines and taglines alike suggest a simple revenge plot. Nothing more. After a recent onslaught of films and television shows trying admirably hard to instil within their stories as much unpredictability as possible without looking desperate, most notably through the notion that no one is safe from an untimely death, veteran silver screen viewers need not travel with a protagonist for hundreds of snow-drenched, predator-filled miles before they can predict the final outcome of his quest. Still, no film this side of the new year surprises viewers more expertly with the age-old reality in storytelling: It is not just about what to say, but also how to say it that counts. The latter quality spoils audiences within minutes by rewarding their faith with eye-numbing shots dripping with alluring connotations of various themes of great modern-era relevance. Each marker of thought lingers with no more or less significant than the next, forming a trail of uncomfortably familiar talking points that are consistently deep throughout the brutally freezing and often fiendishly lonely quest of The Revenant.
       
          There is almost no doubt whatsoever, among loyal fans especially, concerning DiCaprio finally winning the Academy Award for the best leading actor of the year. Moreover, no mist or fog, both natural and man-made, obscures the fact that DiCaprio puts his heart and so much more into the role of Hugh Glass. He is able to employ an accent of Southern dialect with which he has total control, speak First Nation languages with evidently well-rehearsed fluency and move violently to the tune of his own screams in a manner that proves crucial for making an encounter with a CGI-fuelled grizzly bear move from a farcical plot necessity into the realms of the most fascinating scenes in movie history. The acting prowess remains outstanding to the end, even in unbearably cold temperatures. He remains captivating over mountains, under water and everywhere in between, leading a cast all eager to also bring their finest dramatic qualities into the frame. Albeit the awards season has been tainted by the #OscarsSoWhite dilemma, rewarding DiCaprio with long overdue recognition for his abilities as an artist will be an result over which few will dare dispute.      

          The Revenant was shot entirely at the mercy of natural light. The phenomenon appears to be no more than a practical short-cut and an industry gimmick akin to 3D in film-making when discussed in interviews. Not a single image throughout the film, however, could have gone without it. Fire, the sun and the moon were just some of the light sources that the crew waited hours for on multiple occasions just to capture at the best, most fruitful moments for the film. That very light became the key to bringing both the Canadian and the Argentinian scenery, which together adopted the role of the early nineteenth century American wilderness, to exquisite, awe-inspiring life. With good reason there are times when even those who enjoy the more artistic style of film-making will lose focus, until they are immersed again into the painting by another breath-taking landscape shot that until its viewing there and then never seemed possible. Nature appears so gorgeous and so stunning that one feels compelled to go to Canada, even if only to celebrate Nature's unrivalled aesthetic prowess with relish for a moment. Fortunately, a moment is all one needs, for the action in The Revenant blasts into audiences sensibilities surrounding a particular fragment of famous Canadian poetry.

"this is a country

 where a man can die

 simply from being

 caught outside." 

- Alden Nowlan, "Canadian January Night"  

          Refusing to accept that the beauty of the unexplored natural world or the exceptionally focused acting would be enough to compensate for a straightforward sequence of story events, the film-makers successfully injected a striking amount of unpredictability and tension into the plot, even in scenes for which the conclusion could not be clearer. Furthermore, throughout Hugh Glass's journey, the film touches upon the First Nations, Nature as an entity that is very much alive and in constant motion, as well as a handful of different human relationships. The Revenant depicts the pursuit of survival at all costs, presenting different forces repeatedly coming into undesired contact with one another but ultimately placing humanity at the centre. Men embrace conflict with one another without remorse. The battles grow only more ruthless as they discover and surrender to poisons of the mind, such as greed, rage and ignorance. On each occasion, humanity is presented as capable of making a choice. While perhaps less well-understood in centuries gone by, that choice to act selfishly, or at least mildly selflessly, in order to stay alive and enjoy a comfortable living, remains as prevalent on this day in the twenty-first century as it did in the American wilderness of the eighteen twenties. For that reason alone, The Revenant will remain frozen in memory as a major movie talking point long after the glamorous excitement of this year's Oscar season melts away. 

THE VERDICT: 9/10

Films That You Should Have Watched Yesterday - Gladiator (2000)

The Gladiator Way: The Script That Became a Bible, the Music That Became an Anthem and the Movie That Defined a Genre

          No greater gift could have been bestowed upon the world of cinema during the millennial year than Gladiator. Rarely, both before and since the historical epic's theatrical début in May 2000, has every element of the film-making process, from the deeply medicinal original score, to the highly motivational dialogue and the breathtaking shots of a journey marked especially by vicious but still exciting combat sequences and gorgeous scenery, clicked together so brilliantly, as if each element was a vital organ, without any of which the movie's enviable and exemplary staying power in the viewer's heart would fade before even the climax was reached. Yet, in the aftermath of the first viewing, there will no doubt be favourite ingredients among different audiences that will remain fresh even if the film were to be watched at least once a year in an attempt to re-capture the magic, re-ignite a passion for life and people, as well as restore faith in the notion that works of historical fiction, at least in cinema, can and do emulate the depth and the sheer variety of sensibilities celebrated by stories with more contemporary settings, with an equal if not far greater degree of emotional accuracy and integrity than one might have heretofore imagined. Whichever quality of the film marches into their minds first, in any case, the victory achieved is in no small part a consequence of a long and difficult quest undertaken by the artists who crafted the film, who all demonstrated perseverance not far apart from that witnessed in the protagonist, forever wavering in strength but nonetheless remaining determinedly present, right up until the journey's end.               

          The screenplay of Gladiator is packed with lines that people recite on various occasions to this day, even if all that remains of the dialogue's significance is the memory of the context for which it was written, which more often than not is a spectacular battle, featuring a character with nothing to lose against a world reigning fire of all guise upon him until the very record of his existence is buried in blood and sand. "What we do in life echoes in eternity" might have recently been heard by someone giving good cause for their generosity to society, if not for some other divine or motivational purpose. "I will see you again. But not yet. Not Yet." At first glance the plainest arrangement of words that a movie studio could have paid millions of dollars for a trio of screenwriters to settle with for a closing line, until heard during a conclusion that marks the end of a struggle resulting in a sheer exhaustion of emotions on the part of the audience, whose ceaseless routing for the hero has lasted by then for well over two hours. Beyond the grief and the joy such a line consistently denotes hope for the future, particularly the ambitious prospect of keeping the connection of friendship everlasting, both in this life and the next. The screenplay also provided a light touch of humour for a post from The LAD Bible when the quote, "on my signal, unleash hell" went viral not so long ago. Appreciated best with an awareness of the source material, words originally spoken on the battlefield were allegedly declared in the bedroom. Adore or despise them, one will likely hear a decent amount of references to the Gladiator screenplay for many years to come. Humble inspirations, the pursuit for story over historical accuracy, as well as an attentiveness to the emotional similarities and differences between men and women rather than a focus on mindless bloodshed, all join forces to produce a motion picture as sweet as a millionaire's desert. And of course the passionate delivery of such a screenplay by the actors provides the ganache to that desert, so that the movie becomes that much richer. 

When All Else Fails, Say It With This Helmet On - The development of the screenplay proved to be a very trying endeavour. Three screenwriters, David Franzoni, John Logan and William Nicholson, were required to contribute and compromise repeatedly until the writing was deemed worthy to be spoken in front of a rolling camera. As late as two weeks prior to filming, actors protested against the script's quality, prompting a determination in  everyone involved to ensure that the plot expanded to become about far more than just a barbarian horde in Ancient Rome. To this end, Russell Crowe was at times requested to improvise lines at the last minute that "just flowed well." In his own harsh but honest assessment, he had to "make even garbage [lines] sound good." The final cut of the film is said to be almost entirely different from Franzoni's original draft dated October 1997. Thus, the collaborative effort behind Gladiator, with all of its clumsy dancing of ideas and bitterly conflicting visions taken into consideration, testifies to the notion that success smiles at all us, following the right mixture of hard work and good luck.            

          No element of the film deserves to have its contribution forsaken. However, the at once graceful and then majestically turbulent tides of the original score are what sweep Gladiator onto the ever-shifting shores of the audience's long-term memory. One reason for the score's quality is that it was composed by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard; musicians whose consistently distinct melodic flavours have saved all of their movie from inciting an incomprehensible feeling of emptiness. A second reason for the score's success also assumes the role of the its greatest curse. Debate has raged to this day over the extent to which the classical greats, Gustav Holst and Richard Wagner, influenced the music for the film, arguably resulting in the formation of the key justification in the minds of critics for why the score has surprisingly often been denied recognition as one the finest compositions ever written. Expert knowledge aside, the music is play from the moment the opening titles are set in motion, captivating audiences with breathtaking excitement during battles of all scales, even with masterfully-placed periods of silence, until playing on into the end titles and inviting audiences to linger in awe of the film's world, at first a living hell but ultimately a light of strength and honour for its inhabitants, until those audiences must, with reluctance, depart from the theatre, switch off their DVD players or exit their online streaming services, in all cases thinking to themselves with joy, "What on earth was that?" As with art in all forms, interpretations will vary enormously among those who come into contact with it. And rightly so, for the art, at least as far as Gladiator is concerned, is intended for pleasure. The depths of pleasure, surely cannot be understood without total freedom from the fear of potentially dangerous repercussions for any facet of the human design. Nonetheless, Gladiator thrives on reaching out to as wide an audience as possible by awakening common motivations and questions from within the hearts of all people, like the wind tenderly flowing through every single grain of wheat in the fields that in turn gently sways from side to side while a rising white sun outlined in bumblebee yellow embraces a tiger-orange sky on all fronts. Courtesy of the music, like the Maximus the Brave, audience members may recall a time during which they felt overcome by immense grief after having ostensibly lost everything, considering with great discomfort that they at some point in their lives had nothing left to live for, only to be retold, through beautiful movie melodies, of the hope that prompted them to keep going, trusting that they remained capable of changing the lives of those around them, even in the most doubtful of situations. Gladiator is the the perfect New Year's Eve movie, for in a charge fuelled by the music, audiences are encouraged to feel proud of others and themselves for the positive differences that they can set in motion. One may tremble. The urge to weep may follow. Crucially, however, even if one decides to watch Gladiator at least once a year, the revitalising passion instilled in the heart by the life-changing victories achieved, in spite of bitterly excruciating losses, will on each occasion be no less genuinely felt than on the last viewing. The longevity of the soundtrack has allowed it to be placed on decent number of lists affirming the top film scores of all-time. An exceptional array of competitors prevented the Gladiator score from making it onto the AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores list of the top twenty-five film scores in American cinema, which was released by the American Film Institute in 2005. On the other hand, the music cheekily reached number three on Classic FM's Movie Music Hall of Fame, thanks to twenty-one thousand listeners' votes. In the end, there will certainly always be somebody whose strongest emotional defences cannot be breached by the music. Additionally, though, there will also forever remain somebody else who will feel the might of the soundtrack so completely that awards and other opinions will not mater at all.

You Against the World -  The music has had such a profound, inspiring effect on people around the world that it has been employed in NFL playoffs during commercial breaks and prior to half-time periods. Moreover, the score has also been a popular choice at funerals and become a guilty pleasure for motivation whilst at the gym, which has spawned a demand for remixes of popular tracks that are now all over YouTube. For avid music fans, the top two tracks are "The Battle" and "Now We Are Free," with the latter track being made even better when played after "Elysium" and "Honour Him." A small fortune could be wagered upon the possibility that one might heard these pieces of music already in a context that was totally devoid of any relation to the music's original purpose. Its versatility for use in a variety of personal and public functions testifies to the music's core message, present with every track: You can do it.   

          Gladiator is a film where everything works. Everything. Even the mistakes. For instance, in the midst of incredible acting in authentic costumes, gorgeous music and catchy dialogue, watch out for the jeans. To save pausing the picture every scene for over two hours, they may be identified somewhere in the first act, reminding viewers that a perfect movie cannot and does not literally have to be perfect. For a time, film lovers will feel compelled to compare the picture with the great number of historical dramas that came after it, particularly the projects for which the principle collaborators of Gladiator reunited. Soon, though, to compare Gladiator with Kingdom of Heaven, Robin Hood, or Exodus: Gods and Kings becomes as pointless and frankly unkind as comparing people to one another. No film is faultless but here, with Gladiator, is still a magical quality that will never be recreated. Here is magic that does not need to be recreated, since it is possible to produce spells of different but equally satisfying flavours. Thus, historical epics of cinema's future need not fear failure because they will be unable to replace the position held by Gladiator, for the artists behind them are capable of and more than welcome to make a movie that justly joins its rank as one of the finest historical films ever made.  

Do I Look Familiar? - Boldly written in the blog somewhere on IMDB is the belief that Joaquin Phoenix "was good in Gladiator; rubbish in everything else." Evidence suggests that such a remark is a little extreme, since his performances in more recent movies, including Walk the Line and The Master, received critical acclaim, even after Phoenix famously declared that the Oscars were "bull****." Furthermore, the legacy of his superb performance as Emperor Commodus lived on into the current decade when Jack Gleeson modelled his portrayal of Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones upon the Roman tyrant. The audience may not like him but they will, without question, be entertained.   

Films That You Should Have Watched Yesterday - Blood Diamond (2006)

    Lekker Story, Bru: The Fight for Fulfilment in the Mad World 

          While sat comfortably on a candy-red double decker bus, cruising alongside beaches comprised of vanilla-shaded sand gently massaged by tranquil sapphire-blue water prompts the audio commentary provided for the sightseeing tour of Cape Town, South Africa, to proudly assert that here lies one of the prime filming locations for major Hollywood blockbusters, such as Invictus, Black Sails and Blood Diamond. Even a decade later, the tourism industry insists that visitors are made aware that Cape Town, recently voted the second best beach city in the world by National Geographic, played an integral role in these productions, providing one of the beautiful backdrops for which there was no substitute anywhere else on the African continent. Temptation suggests that hearing movie titles, which are accurate but nonetheless far from current, highlights that the tourist information is in desperate need of an update. Such thoughts are hastily buried deep, however, once the didactic, Oscar-tipped political war thriller, positioned at the end of the aforementioned list, is finally watched. Even if only a few seconds of screen time were dedicated to the seaside of the Western Cape, pride in South Africa's role for the film spawns from all of the building blocks that the nation provided in aid of telling a superb story, which lingers in heart and mind for years afterwards, not just because so few Hollywood features dare to be set in Africa, but also due to the fact that Blood Diamond exposes numerous real world instances of both the pain masked behind the pleasure and vice versa. The mind-numbing scale of these contrasts had heretofore, at least in public, been unappreciated and often outright denied with striking persistence. Now, after watching this movie, they will all at least never be entirely forgotten.      

Diamonds Are for Nothing - Ostensibly incurable corruptions in society are exposed in Blood Diamond, most notably the belief, entrenched deep in the minds of the tyrannous majority by the unquestioned and unchecked powerful business-minded, who are motivated by greed under the guise of aid, forever asserting that materialism and money are the keys to uncovering the true and eternal happiness within. The tragedy is that, after having been allowed to be declared through posters and television sets for decades, these beliefs are so engrained that to be permanently relieved of them seems impossible. Thus, individuals are left to justify their unwillingness to change with morally false, unfocused attempts at minimising the inevitable collateral damage caused by their selfish pursuits of what they want. For example, is an expensive diamond ring really the best way to show and make a permanent record of romantic love? Even in spite of the costs, both hidden and visible? Will that diamond make loneliness history for those who employ it the way that society deems necessary? For now, few dare to risk tainting the love in question with potentially crippling guilt by suggesting otherwise.         

          Leonardo DiCaprio lost out on an Oscar winner's recognition of artistic prowess for the third time following his role in Blood Diamond, during an awards season in which even veteran critics couldn't pick a winner between his performance as the Zimbabwean smuggler, Danny Archer, and a portrayal of an American undercover cop in Martin Scosese's highly acclaimed winner of four Oscars, The Departed. As a bizarre and frankly unfair consequence, DiCaprio was granted two of the four Golden Globe nominations available for the trophy given to the best actor of the year in a drama picture. A sadistic knife twist in the heart in the form of a laughable and cruel arrangement of events followed when DiCaprio returned home after that particular ceremony in 2007 with neither part being crowned the winner. Yes. There is no denying that his attempt at the South African accent was far from flawless. Yet, after forgiving a handful of ear-tickling mistakes occurring as early as his first scene in the film, DiCaprio does eventually becomes more consistent, which many fail to notice after refusing to forgive him for his initial clumsy pronunciations. However, this error alone cannot justify the actor's denial of Oscar victory or that his performance remains as priceless as the diamonds around which the movie is centred. Throughout Archer's dialogue there are instances of appropriate South African-isms. Some of these come in the from of not just familiar words but also entire lines of dialogue that DiCaprio himself improvised in the midst of of filming, courtesy of thorough research into how a character originating from Zimbabwe and for a time living in South Africa might speak and behave. The greatest quality brought to Danny Archer, however, through expert mannerisms, facial expressions and particularly impressive employment of the eyes, is a determination to present and maintain a tough, life-hardened personality. One that defiantly guards the deeper, more fragile core of the character that is urgently seeking peace and stability, hoping also to heal the painful void of loneliness growing ever greater with each setback or miscalculation that he encounters. As the audience watches the tears reluctantly emerge from Archer's worn, tortured eyes, they are reminded that love, at its purest, is not present in money or sex for instance but genuine, selfless offerings of kindness. Offerings of which all are worthy of receiving from everyone else, regardless of ties of family or blood any other more artificial threads that people employ to connect each another in exclusive clubs founded ultimately in their imaginations. Thus, Blood Diamond to this day serves as a reminder that Leonardo DiCaprio, for creating a great character and playing a leading role in the crafting of fine storytelling, filled with action, emotion, suspense and powerful lessons, should have, without question, won an Academy Award for acting a long time ago.  

Everyone's a (Worthy) Winner - An infinite amount of credit is due for DiCaprio, not least because here was a role through which he finally proved to the world that he could play more mature roles that were far removed from the 'teenage boy' image that was for a time forced upon him after the immense success of his breakthrough part in Titanic. Media channels have speculated that he turned down roles in Spider Man and Star Wars in order to avoid being forever pigeon-holed by Hollywood. More recent performances in The Wolf of Wall Street and The Revenant suggest that his determination to succeed as a great actor have paid off, albeit not evidenced by an Oscar win. Incidentally, Djimon Hounsou and Jennifer Connelly also perform admirably. Audiences will no doubt remember Hounsou from another awesome sidekick role in Gladiator, in cinemas over a decade prior to this movie. Hounsou has also endured similar bad luck at the Academy Awards to his parter in crime for Blood Diamond. The fact that Connelly was not nominated for an award as a result of this particular film would not bother most, since she had already made her noteworthy talent clear after winning an Oscar for her role in A Beautiful Mind. Of course a film's success must not be defined solely by the number of awards that it wins but the fact that this film walked away without any of them does not mean that such awards were any less well-deserved.     

          Cape Town remains a popular location for film-makers. Thus, in time, the contribution that Blood Diamond made to the economy there may become overshadowed by future productions. For now though, it is one of the few places in which the movie does not feel grossly under-appreciated. Blood Diamond is a film for which all of the puzzle pieces, whether it be the beautifully soul-motivating orchestral score by James Newton Howard, the gorgeous cinematography capturing the more pleasant side of Africa, or the imperfect but nonetheless impressive acting witnessed on-screen, fit together perfectly, with Edward Zwick at the helm, to highlight a handful of hard truths through a genuinely worthwhile story. The result was one of the best cinematic experiences of the decade.