The Revenant

— A beautiful and brutal film, with expansive scenes of mountains, snow-covered forests, and white valleys, but up close enemies are inescapable and there is often blood splattering and sometimes coating the snow. The cold is always part of it—and the danger, the sadness, and the revenge. It never lets up and the film is so well done that we feel every tension and every blast of arctic air, enduring right along with DiCaprio, loss of family and friends, death, rebirth, and vengeance. In the end, you may be scratching your head trying to figure out what the dream imagery meant, but there’s comfort in just seeing it as a classic tale of man against nature and man against man. There probably is more to it on some figurative level, but even on its obvious, lyrical level this is a gorgeous film thanks to DiCaprio, Iñárritu, and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki. It deserves all the praise it’s getting.

---

[2015. 156 min. Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. Starring Leonardo Dicaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, and Will Poulter.]
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-revenant-2015