The Revenant (2015)

This is a monstrosity of a movie. Grueling, uncompromising, and incredibly painful--to film and to watch. We feel their pain too. It is a visionary achievement in film making with breathtaking nature shots and violence galore. The characters are crazy and the filmmakers are a little crazy too for being so ambitious. This movie is two and a half hours of agony and torture but you can't look away because it is beautiful and visually stunning. Though the run time is way too long. I could have done without the Powaqa subplot. I think the subplot tries to give motivation for all the killing but at the same time I got the sense that the film uses the wild west as an excuse for the violence.

Let's start with the opening battle. Inarritu and Lubezki have already proved that they are masters at the tracking shot (see Birdman) and this super complex battle scene looks like one long bloody take. The shot moves fluidly between the forest and the river, even dipping in and out of the water. I happened to notice some really intricate sound mixing as well. The ambient score sort of just waits in the background, and all of sudden maybe a few minutes before the end of the scene, the music overcomes the dialogue and the sound effects and this music is the epitome of the sound of bloodshed. And then the music fades back. Throughout the film, the music enhances the atmosphere of doom and the untame wildnerness. And there is an excellent balance between the music and the dialogue and the sounds of nature, each alternating their turn in the limelight. The strict use of natural light and colors enhances the outdoors-y wildnerness aura. You see Leo's warm breath in the cold air fog up the camera lens

Then there is the bear scene we have all heard so much about. It is excruciatingly painful to watch. And Leonardo DiCaprio wails and screams like there was a real bear mauling him (it is so lifelike and he is tossed around so violently that you really think twice about this bear). This scene is devoid of music. You hear just the natural surroundings. You feel like you are in the scene, being attacked by a grizzly bear. And if there is any mistaking the audience being entrenched in the action, in the final shot Leo stares right into the camera, and we hear his familiar labored breathing.

Leo is a man unmistakably dedicated to his craft. For much of the movie he acts without words, just enduring pain in his eyes. He went through hell and back, rising from the dead to portray this character. He ate the raw livers and slept in the dead carcasses. He suffered for his role visibly. And the whole cast and crew suffered great pains to make this vision a reality, to fulfill Inarritu's insane and indeed monstrous vision.