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MOVIE REVIEW 'The Revenant' is stark, moving and beautiful Comment By Chris Honoré for Revels DailyTidings.com By Chris Honoré for Revels Posted Jan. 21, 2016 at 12:01 AM Updated Jan 21, 2016 at 10:25 AM By Chris Honoré for Revels Posted Jan. 21, 2016 at 12:01 AM Updated Jan 21, 2016 at 10:25 AM » Social News The Revenant; 156 min; Rated R “The Revenant” is an extraordinary film: intense, unrelenting, gorgeous to behold and unflinching in its realism. The year is 1823. It’s mid-winter in Montana and South Dakota. A group of men, working for The Rocky Mountain Fur Company, are just completing six months of trapping and preparing pelts and readying their riverboat for a return trip to their basecamp, a roughly constructed fort downstream. The trip will be long and arduous. The forest is quiet, wind stirs high in the trees when suddenly a man, in mid-sentence, is shot in the throat by an arrow. The group is set upon by Arikara warriors, and the trappers must fight a desperate and brutal battle as they attempt to get to the boat and escape. Among the few survivors are Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), who is part Pawnee. During one of their stops along the way, Glass is attacked by a grizzly sow, protecting her cubs. It is one of the most heart-stopping scenes in the film, a mauling that leaves Glass close to death. The party makes the decision to leave behind three men, including Hawk, to bury Glass when he dies (they are certain he is near-death) and then make the journey on their own to the fort. His son, killed by one of the trappers, Glass — still alive — is thrown into a shallow grave and partially buried. Through sheer will, he eventually emerges, discovers the body of his dead son, and thus begins what will be a 200-mile journey across some of the coldest and unforgiving landscape imaginable. His mission is to find the men who were responsible: John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), a ruthless, mercenary man, and a young, unsuspecting neophyte, Jim Bridger (Will Poulter). Simply put, this is a story of vengeance, privation and endurance. What is remarkable, truly remarkable, is the balance between the poetry of the cinematography — it will take your breath away — and the crucible of pain and exhaustion that Glass endures as he moves forward, against all odds. His suffering is palpable as he is forced to cross bone-chilling rivers, sleep in snow caves, stand in icy waters and gorge on raw fish, cauterize with gun powder a neck wound so he can swallow — all as he pushes forward with an unrelenting tenacity. At the heart of “The Revenant” is its cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, an artist of unparalleled ability. The winter landscapes are blindingly beautiful while also lethal and silently threatening. The film was shot in Canada, the U.S., and Argentina, absent any forms of CGI. Its director, Alejandro Inarritu (“Birdman”), and Lubezki agreed that it be photographed only in natural light, no matter how short the days. And so the images are stark, the skies gray, the rising mountains white beyond white, the lichen-covered trees reaching toward the frozen heavens, swaying in a harsh, biting wind. In scene after transcendent scene, it is magical and stirring and as moving as is the journey of Hugh Glass. Having said that, the acting is also superb, for it is evident that each actor brought to this film a grinding and heartfelt commitment. Hardy and DiCaprio all but disappear into their characters. It is hard to imagine what they, like their characters, endured as they struggled to survive what proved to be a long and grueling shoot. Clearly they, along with Lubezki and Inarritu, will be recognized by the Oscars for what is a beautiful and difficult story to watch. Film can be art, and both director and cinematographer have given us a gift, a primeval story, elegant in its simplicity yet framed by sublime moments of pain. By Chris Honoré for Revels DailyTidings.com By Chris Honoré for Revels Posted Jan. 21, 2016 at 12:01 AM Updated Jan 21, 2016 at 10:25 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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