The Revenant -- Movie Review

Photo: from the film's Wikipedia site

Very gripping, in-your-face film with fine performances and great directing and cinematography. The setting is really the main character of the film, and there are long stretches of it, with little action or dialogue, so you'd better like it. I did, like I do watching Terrence Malick films, but if you don't, this film may be an ordeal for you. (It's supposed to be an ordeal, but more on that later.) This scenery does for beautiful negativity what Malick's does for gorgeous serenity. It's all supposed to be taking place in the northern climes of the Louisiana Purchase in 1823, though most of it was actually shot in the Canadian Rockies and in Argentina. But I'm gonna call it the Arctic, 'cause that's sure what it seemed like to me. Unless you're an expert hiker and really know your landscapes, it'll seem that way to you, too.

There are so many shots of snow, trees, rivers and streams that it'll either strike you with awe or with annoyance. These shots are supposed to be metaphysical; yet they're also supposed to nail the point home that this is a beautiful, but desolate and unbelievably harsh landscape. The movie is more about survival in this setting than it is about revenge or anything else.

In no particular order, DiCaprio's Hugh Glass has to survive the greed of his fellow trappers; the anger and desperation of Native American tribes (three of them are mentioned in this movie); the unlawfulness of French trappers and traders (which includes murder, kidnapping and rape); the freezing temperatures; the blizzards and snow; starvation and dehydration.

And, oh yeah--that bear.

Photo: Hugh Glass (or an 1800s James Cromwell?) and DiCaprio, from The Telegraph's article of the real Hugh Glass

This is not a film for the squeamish, though the bear attack was not as bloody and brutal as we've heard. (Or maybe I'm just battle hardened.) More disconcerting is the frequent brutality of many forms. You know how in most movies guys get one bullet to the head or one stab in the chest and that's it, they're done? Not so here. And violent things happen to CGI bears, bear cubs, moose, elk and wild dogs, too. And a horse, from that cliff clip we've all seen, when Leo and Horse go over. And Leo uses that horse like Han Solo did to another creature in Jedi, but even more so here. Yuck!

And it's all very realistically written, acted and directed. If you've seen last year's Best Picture winner, Birdman (and if you haven't, you should), then you know that Innaritu--last year's Best Director--really likes close-ups. And I mean, close. So much so, so often, that the frozen wilderness will seem claustrophobic, though it's all open space and wide expanses. But the camera is right on these guys. Not in their face, exactly, but closely above them, or beside them, or under them. There aren't too many distant shots of these actors. If they're on screen, they're taking up the whole screen. So be ready for that you-are-there feeling that this type of direction generates. You'll feel like you're in the Arctic with them--and you'll feel like you can't wait to get the hell out of there. An interesting achievement, that: You'll be glued to the screen (no small feat, since it's over two and a half hours long), but you'll be so overwhelmed by the brutality and the conditions that you want to be able to leave. I got the feeling, somewhat, that I was trapped.

Which was the director's goal, of course, and he succeeds. The film is an ordeal, and I mean that in a positive way. You suffer along with everyone--and everyone does suffer. This movie is about suffering and survival, and it does not have a solid, clear, winning ending. Consider yourself warned.

Photo: The director, Alejandro Inarritu, and Leonardo DiCaprio, from the same Telegraph article

DiCaprio deserves his nomination, and I'm not sure I saw a better leading performance this year. I don't mean that negatively, but nobody has stood out for me in terms of an obvious win at Oscar-time. I suppose DiCaprio is that guy.

Tom Hardy also deserves his nomination, as did Mark Rylance, whose performance I liked a little bit better. He didn't have the conditions to play off of, as Hardy does, and he says a lot more than Hardy does. (Tom Hardy, since his performance as Bane, seems to have specialized in roles that require minimal verbosity. He says more here than he does in Mad Max, but not by much.) I still feel Benecio del Toro deserved an Oscar nomination for Sicario, which itself was also not nominated. His was the best supporting performance I've seen this year. It's hard, as I mentioned in another entry, to compare his performance to Rylance's, because they're so different: his is exceptionally harsh and cold, and Rylance's is very powerfully quiet and nuanced. But del Toro's role and Tom Hardy's role are actually quite similar--though Hardy evoked quite a bit of Tom Berenger in Platoon for me here--and they both play guys who are cold and evil to the core, and who don't change. This was a nice change, by the way. Hardy says some very memorable things at the end of Revenant that you may not soon forget.

So go see this film if all of the above sounds like your cup of tea. Speaking of that, you will want something hot to drink after you see this, because the surroundings are so much the main character of this film that you will feel like you've just spent two and a half hours in the frozen, bloody Arctic.

P.S.--I always sit through the credits, so here I saw a name I haven't seen since the early-80s: Lukas Haas. Can you guess the movie? He was the little boy with Harrison Ford in Witness. Yeah, my mind works like that--I didn't even have to look it up. It hit me in the theatre. It's an illness.

Movie Lovers

Photo: The Tree of Life movie poster, from it's Wikipedia site.  (See this film.  Roger Ebert, in this year's Sight & Sound poll, said it's one of the ten best ever made, world-wide.)

I must be a movie lover (technically called a cinephile) because:

1.  I sit through the credits.  I love to know who the cinematographer, director, and supporting actors are, and sometimes it's necessary to just let the whole movie sink in after it ends.  I was like this after the movie Lincoln recently.

2.  I do sometimes compare people to movie characters.  Actually, I do that all the time.  The real people hardly ever compare, even if the movie character was "bad."  I realize this is antisocial of me.

3.  I get giddy about upcoming movies by directors I like, such as a new Spielberg film.  I'm enough of a cinephile to get excited by the new Ed Zwick, Peter Weir, David Fincher, Terrence Malick, or Ridley Scott film, amongst the names of great directors that most non-fans don't know.

4.  I do relish intelligent film discussions, but not intelligent film competition, because when proving a point about a film, I definitely become obnoxious--and so does the person I'm talking with.  For example, when discussing a film, I actually use the word "film," not "movie."  Sounds elitist, I know, but the fact is that Schindler's List was a film, and Hangover was a movie.  Just because the point is obnoxious, that doesn't make it untrue.

5.  I understand the demographics, too--which is why I won't go see films geared towards demos I don't want to see movies with.  I mean that in the kindest of all possible ways.

6.  I definitely judge people by their favorite movies.  If your favorite film is one of the Hangovers, or one of the Saws (as good as the first one of each series was), and if you've never even seen (or heard of) 2001 or Schindler's List, then I'm out.

7.  I really appreciate movie memorabilia, but such things will just clutter up the house.  Or maybe I just don't decorate well.  Of course, should the actual real prop come my way, I'm all over it.  Who wouldn't want to have one of the rings actually used in the LOTR films?!?

8.  I complain about continuity issues and product placements all the time.  (But only after the movie, of course.  Belanger's rule #1 of seeing films at a theatre: You will not talk during the film.)  Drives people nuts.

9.  I don't remember dates or important things by films.  I'm a guy; I remember such things based on who I'm dating at the time.

10.  I haven't made out in theaters since I was a teenager.  Call me unromantic or lacking in spontaneity, but I'm not spending $11.50 per ticket just to miss most of the movie.  Hell, if I want to make out with a woman in the dark, I'll just invite her over after I've stopped paying the electric bill for a few months.

The Artist

photo: Poster, from the movie's Wikipedia page

I wanted to see the Academy Award winner for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director, and I knew I had to see it fast before it left the theatre, as this is in the theatre now only because of its Oscar wins.  I can't comment too much on its Oscar qualifications, as I have not seen too many of this past year's nominated films, except for Hugo.  So all I can really do is comment on the film itself.

It's obviously an allegory (as was Hugo), or perhaps a fable, as the awesome dog plays a big part.  The direction was superb, and as I only have Scorsese to compare it to, I have to give the nod to this movie's director.  He had a lot more to do, with the black and white (though I didn't miss the 3D credits at the end), the silence, the actors (as this is more of an actors' movie than was Hugo) and the pressure of making a (mostly) silent film zing.  Which it does.

The Oscar has gone to worse performances than the one given here.  From what I understand, this actor is huge in his native France, and for good reason.  Without his voice to help him, he's still an obviously gifted actor.  He looks a bit like Clark Gable, too, and is a born-again 20s and 30s look-alike actor, so he certainly fit the bill.  I'm not sure this film could've been made without the biggest name in the country of its origin, though it shouldn't go unsaid that this is essentially a French production, using mostly American actors, filmed entirely in L.A., about the Hollywood of the 20s and early 30s.  This movie really should have been made by an American company, but sometimes the best mirror can be shown by someone holding it, not the one peering into it.  And American films aren't artistic allegories these days, either, in case you haven't noticed.  They don't simply tell stories, as this one does.  It's a creatively complex way to tell an essentially simple story.

Now, the story.  I have to say first that it's really like the pre-Shakespearean morality plays, this one a warning against Pride (yes, with a capital-P).  And maybe a little bit of Vanity.  I know this not just because I'm an astute guy, but because two different characters (and maybe a third, a cop near the end [played by a guy who's in Mad Men, the one who peed himself]) tell him to beware of his own pride.  But here's where it gets dicey for me: no fewer than three awesome beings (a man, a woman, and a dog) cling to this self-pitying, stubborn man.  The dog, who steals the movie from its Oscar-winning cast and director, walks with him, sleeps with him, acts with him, mugs with him, and is very clearly the love of his life, even surpassing Peppy Miller (an awesome name that unfortunately brings to my mind Pepe LePue; but, again, that's me, not the movie's fault) and certainly superseding the woman he was living with.  You can say that he loves the dog even more than himself, and that's saying a lot.

James Cromwell (very cool seeing him again, looking the same, really, decades now from Babe and L.A. Confidential) is his chauffeur, and father-figure, and Arthur-like caretaker, and best and only human friend, and ever-suffering angel and confidant, and...and what's he supposed to represent in this allegory?  An angel by his side?  (Because that's also what the dog is.)  I don't know.  And Peppy Miller.  Beautiful, though too aware of it, but, whatever, again that's just me.  Lively, very flapper and, apparently, philosopher, and all-too 20s and 30s, and a great dancer, and what a smile, and a nobody until she bumps into him (literally) and he makes her a star.  But they don't have any friendly or romantic interaction between then and the end (in fact, there's a briefly curt scene), and yet she very clearly pines for him, and buys all of his stuff so he doesn't have to lose it (which only reminds him of his pride and vanity), and cares for him, and loves him, and finally resurrects him and his career (though it's a sad commentary that his self is forever entwined with his career)--and all because he gave her a start?  I guess, but for how long can you hold someone in such awe when he's in awe of nobody but himself?  For how long can you love a selfish, self-pitying, stubborn, vain fool?

Is that harsh?  But the movie makes it all work, of course, as it's all very clearly allegorical anyway, and never meant to be taken as literally as I am perhaps taking it.

The Artist is also an obvious homage to, first and foremost, Citizen Kane.  The shots over the breakfast table between the star and his jealous co-star (who doesn't like playing second fiddle to the dog, or to the guy's superior stardom), the freak-out scene when he trashes the film and his room, the closet in Peppy's mansion that holds all his vainglory belongings (like the pan shots of Kane's statues), the ponderous painting of himself, and even the shots of him standing up in the film-light splashed black-and-white backdrop, a la the newsmen in the beginning of Citizen Kane--sometimes, it bordered on a re-showing of that movie, the homage was so obvious.  But that was okay, as it never crossed the line, and I love Kane anyway.  There's also a lot of Singin' in the Rain in The Artist, as the star looks a bit like Gene Kelly as well, and the dancing scenes are a dead giveaway, as is the rain-soaked scene when she visits him.  He also passes on an older, less-talented woman to fall in love with the pretty, younger starlet, who also dances with him, and the silent/talkies thing, and...yeah, if Citizen Kane and Singin' in the Rain could have a child, here it is.

And it was wonderful.