Review of The Revenant (2015) by Jeff N — 20 Nov 2016

During the filming of this DiCaprio was also making his documentary Before the Flood with friend Fisher Stevens, which has now been released a year later. He mentions in that doc and I read in a Rolling Stones interview about how this story of frontiersmen civilizing the wilds and bending nature to their control is about humanity's mistreatment of the environment and nature pushing back.

The definition of revenant is "a person who has returned, especially supposedly from the dead." This tale of brutal survival with Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass struck me again and again as mythic.

I've read Joseph Campbell's books about myths from many cultures and the common elements of the hero's journey. The people Hugh Glass encounters, the dreams, the animal life, the river, the ongoing chase and eventual reckoning with Tom Hardy's John Fitzgerald all contribute to this film as an epic myth.

Straight off their success with Birdman director Alejandro González Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki have given us an amazing film with technical proficiency and mastery of character-driven storytelling on a mythic scale.