If you saw the trailer at the cinema before the film's release, you would have no doubt been teased and gripped by the abrupt glimpses of Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy in action, shooting firearms in an attack and most significantly, the scene where DiCaprio's character comes face-to-face with the infamous bear.

Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the film narrates the 19th Century story inspired by true events, of Hugh Glass, a frontiersman on a fur trading expedition, who literally fights for survival after being mercilessly mauled by a bear and painfully gets left for dead by members of his hunting team.
This film is a story of endurance, revenge and survival laced with melancholy, snow and a barrel full of blood where our main protagonist has to fight against his wounds, his enemies, his dreams, horrendous weather conditions and death.

For his latest role DiCaprio gets buried in snow and dirt, went naked in minus degree weather, sleeps in a horse's carcass, eats raw bison liver, barely says any words but spends the majority of the film heaving and struggling to breath and has never looked more shockingly unrecognizable.  Other than DiCaprio's name attached to the film and a Director with three Oscars already under his belt, the main things the film is acknowledged for is it intense shooting conditions due to the location and weather and the chosen complex method of lighting.

Known for his history of unorthodox methods of filming recognised in previous films like Birdman (2015) where the film was made to look like it was filmed in one continuous shot, it's no surprise that Iñárritu kept up with his unique techniques.  Everything you see in The Reveneant was shot in natural light.  Everything.  Making the already mesmeric backdrops of Argentina and Canada look even more captivating.  However having striking landscapes came at a price as the cast and crew were filming in temperatures as low as -25C.
Talking about the difficulties the making of the film entailed in an interview, Hardy who plays the very ruthless character of John Fitzgerald says, "The paradox is its such an incredibly, beautiful, stunning, breathtaking environment as well, which is trying to kill you. You know, you're standing and you want to take it all in and then you realise it is a dangerous place."  With having to travel two hours to where they needed to shoot and two hours back to their base, DiCaprio adds, "I think we all knew what we were signing up for from the onset, but the weather conditions was the real struggle for all of us...Logistically we had to go to far-off, untouched locations in the middle of the wilderness and do very intricate shots and stunts and sequences that involve lots of rehearsal but, it was the changing climate and the subzero temperatures that always was a struggle for us.  One day we'd come in to film an entire sequence we thought was going to be in snow and there would be no snow for weeks, or the opposite would happen." "Or it was under water, completely washed out," Hardy adds.

It makes it easy to see why the film is labelled as 'the toughest film to shoot ever' and why it has 12 Oscar nominations including Best Picture. The telegraph described it as 'brutally beautiful'.  It is beautifully shot, an infallible statement even with it's guts and blood.

If violence isn't your cup of tea, it may be worth second guessing taking the trip to your local cinema to see two and a half hours worth of it.  There is nonstop violence which makes it all very difficult to swallow.  As a viewer, you definitely go on the journey with Glass and just when you think he'll be fine and he ends up on the run again, diving into a river and getting dragged by the current clinging on to a tree branch; which undeniably took everyone back to DiCaprio's Titanic days, and all you find yourself saying is 'has he not been through enough already?'  Despite Glass' burdened circumstances, you can only hold on to hope for him even after a very long, excruciating two and a half hours at the very last scene which is of DiCaprio looking straight down the lens into your soul, to earlier in the film where after his speech returns, in conversation he says, "I ain't afraid to die, I done it already."  Regardless, fact is, there are no moments of real relief in this film, the brief scene of characters catching snowdrops on their tongues could be classified as relief but in reality this film is remorseless.  However, what Iñárritu does instead of giving us a typical comical scenes as compensation, is gives us relief in giving us beautiful panned shots of the landscapes and for that, with the ratio of savagery, you have to be grateful.

We all know the most talked about aspect of this film is The Oscars. Will this film win the majority of it's categories at The Oscars this weekend?  Will this be the film that Leonardo DiCaprio finally wins an Oscar he deserves for? With it's excruciating assaults and fight scenes contrasting with the astounding surroundings and questionable and almost bogus reoccurring dreams that Glass has throughout the tale, it is definitely a mixed bag.  Nevertheless, like most of DiCaprio's films, there are no happy endings, but if you appreciate the beauty of the art, you will appreciate the 'brutal beauty' of The Revenant.

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I imagine there will be a few of these "preaching to myself" blog posts on here, but after having a conversation with a group of people earlier in the week about the same topic, it felt right to share.

It has been a couple of weeks since my last post because I thought I didn't have anything to write about.  I was going around each day with the mindset of "oh, something good will just pop into my mind and then I'll work from that."  Probably one of the biggest things I have learned right now personally for me, is that this is not always the case.

Along with all the other things I do, I am also photographer and I've currently given myself the task of taking photographs more regularly in order to keep me shooting at times other than just when I'm on a planned shoot doing it for work, as well as to have more little memories to be able to look back on.  Over the last couple of weeks, I've had days where I would forget or there would be just days where I'd be indoors most of the day and it would get to 11pm and I'd remember and then attempt to shoot something quickly last minute.
This ultimately took away from the entire point of why I wanted to shoot everyday as it became rushed and meaningless or didn't even happen at all.  I wasn't intentionally seeking out opportunities to shoot and similarly with this blog and other writing projects, I wasn't being intentional.  I was content on just carrying on going about doing other things and waiting until something came into my mind or until I by chance saw something that I could to write about.

Yes, things can still start out like an idea that way, most things do, and those epiphany moments do happen and they're beautiful, but if you're not practicing your craft or pursuing moments and experiences to be inspired in order for you to then move in your creativity, well, other than instinctively, how else will you be inspired and move in your creativity?

After feeling the guilt of not achieving as much as I wanted to creatively, I had to sit back and be real with myself and remind myself of why I was doing what I was doing.  I wasn't doing it to please other people, I wasn't doing it just to tick something of my list of things to do, I was doing it because I wanted to do it for me and exercise my strengths.  Taking photographs, writing, everything else that I feel I am essentially gifted at and put on this planet to do is important to me and I'm sure the things you are good at are fundamental to you as well.  So let's take this in for a second.  Like any other skill, like any other craft, creativity can't thrive as well unless you nourish it. So if it is important to us, why have we become so blasé about it?

If you play and instrument, you practice to become a more competent player.  If you study, you read up on your area of expertise and research to improve your knowledge, so surely it doesn't have to be different in this case right? If you only played your instrument whenever you needed to, you're ability to play will still be the same as when you last played, if a not little rusty or worse.  If you didn't stay engaged with what you're studying, you'll inevitably not do as well as well as you could in any assignments or examinations and if you waited until you had a "creative idea" until you did anything every time, you could be waiting for weeks, or even longer.

Some people are blessed with having creative ideas come to them more frequently than others and that's how they commonly function, but maintaining continuous practice helps you move in your creativity naturally as well.  The more you're engaged with it, the more likely you are to have those "epiphany moments".

After thinking through all of this in my head, I realised that there wasn't really an excuse.  For some reason, my brain just somehow naturally programmed the concept of being creative to only having creative ideas and being creative only at certain times and it happening naturally and not letting it become part of my lifestyle and I think somewhere along the way, we have all done it too.  Truth is, it needs to become an intentional part of our lifestyle if it's how we grow.

There is an abundance of quotes on creativity out there to help keep you motivated but if there's anything I am going to take from the last few of weeks it would be none of those, but this one phrase I told myself:

It is time to stop waiting for things to happen and hone in on our crafts, seek opportunities, be mindful, be on the look out, stay engaged and enjoy what we find, learn and create.