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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