The Revenant embodies primal hostilities that motivate men to extremes — a film review
January 5, 2016
In the cold winter of early America, a group of trappers and hunters are ambushed by a band of Arikara Indians. The few who survive the merciless attack retreat to base camp. On their way back one of them, Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio), is attacked by a grizzly bear in a prolonged scene of crunching bones and torn flesh. The gruesome encounter is only but a taste of the visceral tone The Revenant takes, wherein the brutality of the wilderness is only matched by the callousness of some of his fellow men.
After surviving the brutal bear attack, Glass is carried by his compatriots and his Pawnee son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck). The treacherous trip has one of the men, John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) convinced that his own survival is threatened by carrying the ailing Glass, who — from Fitzgerald’s perspective — is but dead weight. The struggle between the two is at the core of this film. When Fitzgerald betrays Glass on several levels, ultimately leaving him for dead, Glass, who can hardly speak, much less move, after the attack finds the strength to get to base camp on his own motivated by revenge. The man-to-man violence feels immediate, as Director Alejandro González Iñárritu uses close, tight shots to not only show the internal struggle but also gives the audience a peek into the turmoil within — few places for respite in this bleak landscape and inchoate society.
Along with the struggle for survival there is an alternative narrative of the group of Native Americans from the Arikara tribe who are also on a quest for retribution. Theirs is a different source of settling the score, looking for the daughter of the tribe’s leader. Although the story does not seem to be woven into the overall film seamlessly, it does provide a point of comparison for the many ways in which justice may be sought in the absence of a higher authority, say a state.
“The Revenant,” or “the one who returns after death” is played with appropriately visceral aplomb by DiCaprio, who traded his signature charming leading man good looks to play the grunting, disheveled but strong Hugh Glass. But the real standout performance comes from Tom Hardy, who embodies Fitzgerald, the outlier of the frontiersmen. His personal story is also cemented in brutality, his face alone carries the burden of trauma being half-scalped and full of scars. In an up-close monologue, Fitzgerald tells of the grisly path he’s endured himself. Fitzgerald is a character study of how a person may find their dark side and stay in that space as an excuse for his own behavior.
The stark landscape and the ruthlessness of nature are beautifully captured by Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki’s cinematography, in what is now a collaboration between director and cinematographer that spans decades. The quiet atmosphere and the inhospitable cold portrayed by Iñárritu is not only of a wide scope, but it is also the perfect blank slate to ask human questions about existential survival. Why keep on going when the prospects for survival are bleak, at best? Is there redemption to be gained from revenge? Is justice enough to keep us going? As Glass keeps on marching on, it is hard to overlook both the frailty and fortitude of human nature. Glass’ refusal to die and survival instinct trump myriad of obstacles in his path, yet his losses throughout this journey begin to seem insurmountable. Survival in the face of having nothing else to lose makes this story compelling and powerful.
Though the violence might be quite stark, it is there for a reason. Reminiscent of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s 1988 film A Short Film About Killing, Iñárritu shows the act of killing as a menacing, difficult act both for the victim and the perpetrator. The long take action sequences showcase how the struggles between people are not only physically dangerous but can also diminish that essence that makes us human for all parties involved. Although billed as a revenge film, Iñárritu’s motivation may be different, as the final confrontation between Glass and Fitzgerald will reveal.
The Revenant runs 156 minutes and is rated R. It opens nationwide on Jan. 8. Fox Searchlight invited us to a preview screening last year for awards consideration and the purpose of this review. All images are courtesy of the studio.
Indie theater UPDATE: The Revenant opens at O Cinema Wynwood Friday, Jan. 22.
Overturning Patriarchy in the Post-apocalyptic World: Mad Max: Fury Road – A Film Review
May 13, 2015
Mad Max: Fury Road is a thrilling ride set in a post-apocalyptic world where the main ruler has centralized all resources. The new world is a top-down patriarchy where water, plants and even women and men are resources controlled and owned by a ruthless authoritarian version of Methuselah called Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), who has also propelled himself by conveying a myth of eternal existence to his followers. Indeed, the regime at the Citadel is a strange combination of religious fanaticism, top-down control, private ownership of natural resources, and a cult-like militarized core of supporters who are mostly male.
The population at the Citadel also embody extremes; Immortan Joe’s army and the main inhabitants of the Citadel are pale white mutant warriors who need blood transfusions to function and exist as devout cannon fodder for their ruler/father figure. They run the Citadel through violence and manage a host of slaves who seem to have been plucked from other territories. Among these characters, women seem relegated (surprise, surprise) either as nursing machines or as “breeders,” a group of beautiful young women, who function as Immortan Joe’s wives. Among the inhabitants of the Citadel, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) stands out; a fighter and leader in her own right, she has a mechanical arm and is entrusted by Immortan to collect fuel for the city though she longs to return to her mythical homeland.
The main action of Mad Max: Fury Road is set in motion when Furiosa escapes and takes the five wives with her only to be soon found out by Immortan Joe. A chase ensues, involving the army from the Citadel that includes a host of vehicles souped up with skulls, spikes, chrome and real flames. The decadence of despot, Joe is acutely visible when one of the trucks in the caravan is solely dedicated to a group of drummers led by a punk/goth guitar player dressed in a skin-tight red outfit who rides at the front with a barrage of speakers at his back. The guns and violence launched at Furiosa are straight out of a nightmare world. Yet her steady resolution to find redemption and her hometown are enough to keep her going.
Furiosa also happens to have taken Joe’s wives with her, including a pregnant Splendid Angharad (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), Capable (Riley Keough), The Dag (Abbey Lee), Toast the Knowing (Zoë Kravitz) and Cheedo the Fragile (Courtney Eaton). Max (Tom Hardy) ends up tied to the fate of the female group as he seeks to escape the Citadel where he has been turned into a highly coveted Type O negative human blood bag. He has even been named “Blood Bag” by Nux (Nicholas Hoult) a warrior from the Citadel who has strapped him to the front of his car as a human hood ornament, so he might join the pursuit in the middle of his transfusion. At first interested only in his own survival, Max, who enters the story struggling with his own existential demons as seen in violent flashbacks, comes to find that Furiosa’s journey is one he can subscribe to.
The violence around and directed towards the six women is palpable, and although early in the film, their frailty seems to convince the audience that this chase will be over soon, their refusal to take part in the system that never worked for them gives them strength. These are complex female characters — not a small feat for an action film. For example, Splendid Angharad jumps out of the moving freight car as Immortan and his army close-in on them, in a display that surprises Max but that Furiosa seems to accept, as if she knew all along it was there.
The entire ride shows different forms of violence, from the visceral, directly aimed at the women as physical harm, to psychological control. The next point might be considered a spoiler, but it bares mentioning to speak to the intelligent quality of the film’s story. The caravan ends up meeting Furiosa’s ancestors, a group of women who used to thrive before Immortan’s rule. They provide an alternative view of the world for the women and in doing so set in motion the second half of the film, just as filled with action, only this time the group of women have turned around, facing their predators head-on. Via yet another profound plot-twist (and anyone telling you this film is just an extended chase and has no plot is not paying attention), the film makes a strong point that I have only heard from feminists before, the alternative view that fraternity and equality are far superior to patriarchy. In other words, feminism does not equate to man-hating, but it’s an alternative that can only be understood as a partnership. All this in the midst of fire, action sequences, and total vehicular mayhem.
Mad Max: Fury Road is the most recent iteration of the franchise from director George Miller, who previously directed Mad Max (1979), The Road Warrior (1981) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). The latest iteration shows his ease with the post-apocalyptic landscape and a deep understanding of presenting the high stakes in this world juxtaposed with high-paced entertainment. Although Miller has waited a long time to retake the franchise, one could say that he has perfected some of the elements of the post-apocalyptic world. The barren desert landscapes, the kinetically edited fast-moving shots that rely more on stunt work instead of digital effects — many presented in amazing widescreen, and his depiction of courage among the “wives” who are permanently in danger, are some of the many elements that will keep you from blinking for the two hours this movie runs.
Mad Max: Fury Road runs 120 minutes and is Rated R (it’s violent, for the most part). It opens everywhere in theaters on May 15. For theaters near you, enter your zip code here. For worldwide release dates click here. Warner Bros. invited us to a preview screening Tuesday night for the purpose of this review. All images are courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
You have to admire Christopher Nolan. Count him among those few Hollywood directors alluded to in an earlier post who can prop up a tent-pole film franchise with minimal artistic compromise. Nolan is also among those few former indie directors working in Hollywood with the fortitude to maintain his voice in the corporate machine of mass-consumption filmmaking. In the Dark Knight Rises, his third film following the comic book hero Batman, he finishes his trilogy with a giant flourish that never forgets its humanity. The film has a visually symphonic quality so brilliantly composed, it makes its near three-hour runtime fly past. In this day where filmmakers seem to pander to the continued shortening of attention spans to produce a film of such a runtime at Warner Bros. is a feat in itself. But the film also offers so much more. The key to the film’s brisk pace lies in Nolan’s unsentimental cutting of scenes, the invested performances of his actors and an ingenious plot design (whose major twists you will not find spoiled here).
Though the story of the Dark Knight Rises unfolds along the classical dramatic curve of screenwriting made famous by Syd Field, Nolan knows how to push it to edgy extremes and stay with it. When Batman and his beloved Gotham City seem to arrive at their nadir, the twists never relent, all the way to the film’s final frame. Watching the Dark Knight Rises unfold feels like watching an elaborate sculpture form out of an intricately laid out array of toppling dominoes that span an array of directions and double back. 
You can tell Nolan has learned a lot from his last film, Inception (2010), whose story of dreams within dreams wrapped in a mystery-heist-thriller, also probably owes a debt of its own existence to Nolan’s reputation as Batman’s current cinematic creator. Most everything that happens in the Dark Knight Rises feels connected and warranted. As he has firmly stated in interviews, this marks the end of his trilogy of Batman films, and it makes for one heck of a finale. The Dark Knight Rises even has an ending nearly as good as Inception.
Nolan inherited the Batman franchise on somewhat shaky ground in his career as an indie director gone Hollywood. He burst onto the mainstream’s radar with Memento (2000), a film with twists in its narrative structure so visceral it could leave an audience member dizzy by the end credits. However, a remake of the Swedish thriller Insomnia (2002) followed. It felt so devoted to the original, it left many with a “why-bother” shrug. Somehow Nolan was next handed the keys to Batman, after the famed DC Comics hero was re-envisioned from sixties-era camp to stylized Gothic hero by Tim Burton and then run into the ground by Joel Schumacher who would miscast a glut of distracting Hollywood stars.
With Batman Begins (2005), Nolan would re-write the degree of sincerity warranted to a form of entertainment (the comic book) invented to amuse teenage boys in the early part of the 20th Century. 
Until Nolan, Hollywood had long treated the comic book film as disposable entertainment. Even the Burton films feel slight in comparison to what Nolan created. Nolan instead focused on the gray areas that had long kept comic books alive with adult readers in the 1980s, when the term “graphic novel” appeared, as well as trailblazing independent comic book publishers that explored more grown-up dimensions of character and society.
Played by Christian Bale, Nolan’s Batman felt tortured and haunted. But beyond the characters, Nolan knew how to incorporate social malaise as part of his Batman stories. His second Batman film, The Dark Knight (2008), famously examined the moral compromise of a country spying on its own citizens in the wake of President George W. Bush’s administration policy to wiretap citizens without a warrant (read this). Meanwhile Batman’s antagonist was the nihilistic Joker, whose sole motivation for violence was to have a laugh. Heath Ledger would go on to win a posthumous Oscar® for his portrayal.
Picking up where the Dark Knight left off, the Dark Knight Rises brings a new nemesis into the mix along with another prescient story. 
Clearly inspired by Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, the 1997 graphic novel written by Sin City’s Frank Miller, Batman’s alter ego, billionaire Bruce Wayne has gone into recluse mode. After Gotham City passes an ordinance that seems to put criminals in jail with minimal due process, Batman “retires.” The law, called the Dent Act, alludes to one of the other villains of the Dark Knight who ironically met his demise a martyr at the hands of Batman. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) used to be the city’s District Attorney, until his face was partially melted away by the Joker, turning him into the psychotically schizophrenic Two-Face. When Batman kills Two-Face to save the life of the police commissioner’s son, Batman takes the fall for the sake of Dent’s legacy and the passage of the law.
Enter the revolutionary: Bane (Tom Hardy), a misguided monster out to “save” Gotham from a perceived tyrannical rule that implicates the city’s wealthiest, including Wayne. References to class warfare abound. When Bane and his thugs terrorize brokers on the floor of the stock exchange, 98 percent of the audience will probably find themselves rooting for Bane.
The muscle-bound Bane almost shares as much screen time as Batman. He starts as an enigma who also wears a mask, which generates a tortured but eloquent voice, similar to Batman. His origins eventually come to light, and he becomes humanized to almost creepy affect, as a sort of echo chamber of all that seems rotten in today’s society.
Beyond Batman’s already established regular sidemen Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman), Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) and Wayne’s father-figure butler Alfred (Michael Caine), the film introduces several new characters into the mix and takes time to flesh them all out with conflicted characterizations, one of the best, next to Bane, being Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman (Anne Hathaway). Dumping the campy dominatrix quality of the Catwoman in Burton’s Batman Returns (1992), this Catwoman grows from ethereal mystery woman to a creature of charm and heart.
But another delightful introduction into the mix is Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an ambitious “hothead” of a rookie cop, John Blake. Both Hardy and Gordon-Levitt make returns from Inception, as does Marion Cotillard who plays Miranda, a cipher of a character more complex than she at first seems. Great performers are present all over this film, not the least of which is Bale himself who treats his Bruce Wayne/Batman with as much care as his portrayal of the real-life Dieter Dengler in Werner Herzog’s amazing and underseen Rescue Dawn.
Though the film sustains an edgy, dark tone with its drab, cold color palette, the Dark Knight Rises defines itself with action. The set pieces, including a mid-air plane hijacking scene that introduces Bane, takes one’s breath away. Nolan incorporates digital effects with subtlety among live-action stunt sequences (that plane scene!). Unlike most of these films, Nolan seems to skip out on the digital “stuntmen,” heightening the film’s realistic qualities and, in effect, the film’s stakes. Nolan also avoided the temptation (and probably the pressure) to shoot the film in 3D. It was however, partially shot on IMAX, so the bigger the screen the better.
Having long ago set the tone for the current new era of proper super hero films, there is little room for Nolan to reinvent Batman, however. It just as well may end here (though his next job happens to be as producer on the reboot of the next Superman Film). I should not fail to mention that the Dark Knight Rises is not without its action movie tropes. The film indulges in a couple too many monologues of righteousness between characters that these do-or-die action films tend to lean on for characterization. 
Also, as much hype was placed on keeping Bane’s plan for Gotham secret, the film should be docked for giving us another climactic “countdown” that’s almost de rigueur in action movies. However, it does redeem itself for revealing the flaws in the goals of the Tea Party-type (or Occupy) extremist Bane. His plan to “give Gotham back to the people” results in a terrifying portrait of anarchy that Nolan does not fear dwelling on for an effective amount of screen time.
Another crutch that seems over-used at first but later brilliantly subverted includes the bombastic mood-enhancement of Hans Zimmer’s score. It can get grating in its obvious quality during the beginning of the film. I began to worry how much longer will the film rely on the layering crescendo of an orchestra and the boom from a barrage of percussion to make its point that this is scene or that scene is DRAMATIC. 
Then there arrives this fantastic moment about an hour into the film when Nolan eschews music to nerve-wracking effect. It happens during the first confrontation between Bane and Batman in the sewers of Gotham. You almost forgive the initial overuse of scoring ahead of the scene where the only soundtrack is the sound of physical violence. The moment also includes a wise decision by Nolan to include momentary cutaways to a few scattered onlookers, most of which are Bane’s henchmen. Contrary to many of these moments in the good v. evil canon, they do not cheer their leader on, but watch with a quiet, cold, curious interest. It’s the accumulation of these small but definitive moments inserted among terse action sequences that make the film such an awe-inspiring thing to watch unfold.
My favorite of the four trailers available, as of this post:
The Dark Knight Rises is rated PG-13 and runs 164 minutes. You can catch it at any multi-plex right now in HD, 35mm and IMAX.
Independent Ethos 