Regie:
Alejandro González IñárrituCamera:
Emmanuel LubezkiActeurs:
Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck, Duane Howard, Arthur Redcloud, Melaw Nakehk'o, Grace Dove, Lukas Haas (meer)Streaming (4)
Samenvattingen(1)
Tijdens een expeditie diep in de ruige Amerikaanse wildernis wordt de legendarische avonturier Hugh Glass aangevallen door een beer en voor dood achtergelaten door zijn gezelschap. Tijdens zijn overlevingstocht ondergaat Glass ondenkbare tegenslagen en wordt hij verraden door zijn vertrouweling John Fitzgerald. Gedreven door zijn wil om te leven en zijn liefde voor zijn familie, moet Glass zich een weg banen door een strenge winter tijdens zijn meedogenloze overlevingstocht om uiteindelijk verlossing te vinden. (20th Century Fox)
(meer)Recensie (19)
Well, I was 100% sure that I would be delighted and I was already formulating enthusiastic compliments in my head. And then nothing. Revenant is a great ninety-minute survival movie that unfortunately last 150 minutes. The rest is filled with ambition supported with shallow Indian mysticism. The attempts at transcendental ideas unfortunately lead to nowhere, they are just Iñarritu confidently scratching the surface. It’s not only that they don’t work, but they also end up utterly harming the core story and its characters. I didn’t see Hug Glass on the screen even for a moment. It’s always Leonardo DiCaprio performing art under Iñarritu’s direction. Disappointed as hell and the current 83% in view of the 66% for Birdman is a bad joke.
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Leo will finally get his Oscar. And not because he turned in a better performance than in The Wolf of Wall Street, but because of how much he had to suffer for it. Such a large-scale and, thanks to its locations and weather, true survival movie with a stellar cast and cinematography by Lubezki does not need a thicker plot. IT IS ENOUGH THAT IT EXISTS. Just like it is enough for the Eiffel Tower to just stand there. Because for several decades there will be no other filmmaking project of similar proportions. The funny thing is that The Revenant’s lack of a denser story is criticized by the same viewers who repeatedly went to see the over-filtered Mad Max: Fury Road, in which there is not a single real exterior and someone drives a car through the desert for two hours only to decide to turn around just before reaching their destination. The story of The Revenant is a continual struggle for survival. The betrayal of a friend, meeting a Native American with a bleeding heart, helping the defenseless innocent. And the consequences of all of this. Fate and our ability to influence it. Karma. And for us contemporaries, also the realization that while we hope to have a good time, people before us hoped to survive. Every day. The Revenant’s poetic passages are not pseudo-art; they are art for masses, similar to those of Ridley’s Gladiator, just less cheesy, because Iñárritu expects some development from the mass audience over a decade. Alejandro, it’s incredible what you’re willing to do (and risk) to shoot the hitherto unseen. Chivo, you are a god. Amazing sound and makeup. By comparison, Alive and The Edge become mere snowflakes in The Revenant, flying in the wind of Dances with Wolves. Thank you, cinematography, once again after a long time. This is what I live for.
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There aren't many of these realistically dirty, narratively unkempt films that feel like the filmmakers have actually gone back 200 years, and actually I can't remember any from the last few years. Raw action, where you can feel the blood and pain, physical contact fights taken in one long shot, and beautiful visual compositions of breathtaking nature; and snow and mud and filthy actors everywhere – the film crew must have had their fun too. The simple story doesn't hurt at all, because it goes to the heart of the characters and their physical and mental hardships. The complete opposite of the mannerist, self-absorbed Birdman, where I didn't care about the characters' fates at all. Together with Sicario, the best film of 2015.
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In the same way that we talk about the “Hitchcockian” attributes of some thrillers and use the term “Lynchian” to describe weird films, we may soon find ourselves relating the name of Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu to movies around which media buzz is artificially created. As was the case with Birdman from the year before last, the hype that accompanies The Revenant is far greater than the attention that the film deserves based on its cinematic qualities. With their respective skills, the dream team of Iñárritu, Lubezki and DiCaprio could have made one of the most powerful adventure movies of recent years. Unfortunately, their straightforward B-movie plot couldn’t be “boosted” by the fluid camerawork, which performs even more captivating tricks than we could see in I Am Cuba (for me, the benchmark when rating films with sophisticated long shots). The story of a man chewed on by a bear, who returns “home” in the manner of Odysseus, is interspersed with mystical dream (hallucination) sequences, dialogue about God reincarnated as a squirrel and manifestations of the devastating nature of unregulated capitalism. Iñárritu, who always takes delight in the suffering of his characters, would be the ideal director for a raw western in the traditional mould, in which violence serves as the main means of communication, sets the action in motion, sets up the plot twists and solves problems. Unfortunately, as pointed out above, he decided to communicate meanings in ways other than through spectacular violence. With words, for example. The use of violence as a central narrative element is justified by its insertion into the unsteady framework of a family melodrama, enchanted by Indian mysticism. I am convinced that The Revenant would have been a tonally and rhythmically more balanced film if it had not so stubbornly pretended to have philosophical depth and tremendous spiritual reach. Unlike in the case of Tarkovsky or Malick, the spiritualism in this film is limited to empty words and unoriginal symbolism. The formalistic aspect is in no way uplifting. Besides the motif of the spiral engraved on the canteen, for example, the cyclical concept of time, which is inherent to the indigenous American population, only highlights the repetitiveness of the protagonist’s suffering. Otherwise, the film has a thoroughly standard structure, with precisely timed twists, conscientious utilisation of all motifs and a satisfying ending that leaves no essential question unanswered. It’s okay for one-dimensional characters to serve as tools for conveying information and pushing the narrative in the required direction, but I don’t think it’s okay if they serve no other purpose, despite the film’s attempt to use them to convince us of its own inventiveness and its commitment to a cause (in this case, the interests of Native Americans; see the documentary about the making of A World Unseen, which is basically very naïve anti-capitalist and environmentalist agitprop). For me, the most fitting metaphor for the film, which outwardly criticises pragmatism but is at the same time supremely pragmatic in the handling of its characters and themes, remains the gif of the lead actor as Hugh Glass buried alive, torn and broken, clawing for his dreamed-of Oscar with his last ounce of strength. 65%
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One hundred and fifty minutes of art that offers real physical adventure in only two battles. There's clearly something wrong with a film where you spend most of the runtime thinking about the freezing crew on the other side of the camera. I haven't seen something so "wanted" in a long time. Just hand over the coveted statue and let this one fall in as technically honest and damn difficult filmmaking, which perhaps nobody even cares about in the end. PS: Hardy beats DiCaprio by a dead bear and half a horse.
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Stunning cinematography, atmospheric music, a great Tom Hardy and some riveting scenes. But if the protagonist crawling through the woods for those 156 minutes had been someone I cared even a little bit about, I probably would have had a lot more fun. A good and in some ways exceptional film that I never want to see again in my life.
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Revenant is undoubtedly a great movie. It has genius camera, brutally frozen locations, two absolutely perfect scenes and Leonardo DiCaprio, whose performance is an acting orgasm like never before. If not before, then for this performance he simply has to get the Oscar award. Personally, I think that his showing off is beyond the line. The less talking there is, the more action is happening on the screen. Leo is gutting a horse to hide in his internals or eating raw meat to survive. Plus, he survives a lot ofunbelievable stuff that no average citizen of the Czech Republic would be able to survive. All of that for the most classic reason of all – for revenge. It’s a shame that the creators stretched the story so much. They could’ve spared us some of the flashbacks. Two and a half hours is a lot of time for a story like that. Anyway, I admit that the first scene of the attack of the Native Americans and then the scene of the bear attacking Leo will stick in my memory as the best I’ve seen in a pretty long time.
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As long as during the first 30 minutes we capture the amazing promo reel of Lubezki's camera, which equilibristically flows through the space between panoramic and contact shots, it's captivating. But then comes the need to tell a story and work with the characters, and the master of shallowness Alejandro is suddenly back with everything that it encompasses. The means of storytelling diverts attention from what is told to us. The film has an incredibly-compiled screenplay full of coincidences, which is supposed to be based on ultra-realism, but in fact is constantly slipping out of it towards an attempt at a metaphysical anti-western. The symbolic plane, the game with landscape and flashy symbols, is so superficial and clueless that it’s shameful. Although Leo breathes like a frightened mule and practices the crawling lessons he learned in The Wolf of Wall Street, he basically has no acting to do (I was almost sorry for him during the scene in the ruined temple). The film becomes a superficial high school exercise in Jack London's tenacity, which, thanks to a number of physical details, unfortunately grows into a parody of itself - Glass is Iron Man between trappers and Meresiev of the 19th century. It is not a celebration of the tenacity of man, but of the superfluous ego of a creator who puts himself above the story and the character as a dubious god. Revenant is a rare spectacle, an intellectual exploitation and a film that brings nothing more than magnificent filming of landscapes and action. Otherwise, it's a boring camping guide and a college of starting fires. Where there is nothing, not even the tinder burns. Metaphysics for the poor from the grizzly among the overrated filmmakers. P.S. The bear takes it all, the best CGI scene ever. [50%]
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I was waiting for something in the style of the Black Robe in combination with McCarthy's Bloody Meridian and in a way I got it. Sadly, there was a lot of kind of mystically symbolic insertions that were frequent, pointless and above all unintentionally stupid. It would have been even better if it had kept only in the department of inhospitable wilderness, pragmatic rough trappers, Indians on the warpath, survival, endless snowy distances, howling winds, slow pace. Although it undoubtedly has a few weak or unnecessary scenes, but when it's good (which is true for most of the footage), it's damn good. Largely thanks to the raw atmosphere, poor performance of lame Leo, amazing (however traditional) grumbling Hardy and even Gleeson is surprisingly a great fit. And we need to mention the camera since there has not been anything better since There Will Be Blood. Overall, I really enjoyed it, although I had considerable reservations.
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The Revenant is undoubtedly one of the best, most expensive and gnarliest survival films ever. Technically it's an absolutely flawless film, not even the biggest nerd can fault anything here. The cinematography is breathtaking, it's filmed very authentically almost without editing and at times you feel like you are right in the action. The very raw, uncompromising and chilling scenery adds a lot. Leonardo DiCaprio gives a performance of a lifetime, here he reaches the very bottom of his powers and crawls for the Oscar for the whole 2 hours 30 (although he overacts at times, but what the guy is capable of for a golden bald man is unbelievable). This is also true of Tom Hardy, who plays a spineless motherfucker from start to finish. I'd also highlight the scenes that take your breath away, the raw and brutal action (although there could have been a bit more of it), the final Hardy/Dicaprio duel, who give each other a decent thrashing and the sleeping bag made of a horse (vegetarians and horse lovers will probably rave). The downside is the slower pace, which may bore some, but Alejandro González Iñárritu undoubtedly wanted to fight for the Oscars, so there must be a piece of art here. It didn't blow my mind, but The Revenant is a must see on the big screen! Precise, fierce, raw and star-studded! Story 8/10, Atmosphere 10/10, Gore 8/10, Visuals 10/10, Action 5/10, Suspense 8/10, Humour 4/10. Entertainment 7/10. 85% I was hesitating between 4/5, in the end I give a full score.
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So intensely destructive that at the very end, I felt like Glass himself. Broken, torn apart, utterly ruined, down to the marrow and bone. But unlike him, I would give up practically instantly and just wait for death. He crawls, struggles, and in various croaky ways tries to reach his archetypal goal through Leonardo DiCaprio's thrilling interpretation, to the point where even the winter wind on the way back from the cinema felt like the most pleasant spring breeze. I love the classic concept of the western genre, but this turning of traditions upside down needs to happen once in a while in every genre. Especially when the key scenes (the she-bear, the river, the bisons) are already iconic images from the moment of their debut. A magnificent epic and the most intimate rebirth in one.
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The fact that Iñárritu has been part of the directorial elite for a long time is known among fans, and with The Revenant, the Mexican director only confirmed his position. The film represents top-notch filmmaking and is impossible to overlook not only within its genre but also in terms of the year of its creation. In many ways, it is the polar opposite of commercial blockbusters. It is a slow film, despite the initial bloody intimate battle, and not striving for cheap effects. One can talk in superlatives about the cinematography, which captures fascinating shots of the harsh mountainous landscape of the American Midwest, the desperate struggle for survival in an almost hopeless situation, and the magical hallucinogenic images unfolding in the protagonist's mind. In terms of the plot, it is an emotionally straightforward story of betrayal and subsequent revenge, interspersed with insane survival across the freezing hostile mountainous terrain, which does not forgive weakness and hesitation. For Leonardo DiCaprio, after his drug trip in The Wolf of Wall Street, the fight with the enraged she-bear is the second exceptional scene that will go down in film history. DiCaprio does not showcase any grandiose character acting, and besides, not much can be seen under the tangle of disheveled hair and massive beard. However, the filming required extreme physical exertion from him; he literally had to wear out his role and surely went through a lot. The true star of the film for me, however, remains the cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, who confirms his exceptional qualities. The American West is not portrayed in the film as a romantic place or a promised land but rather as a place where harsh conditions for survival prevail, and most of the energy is spent on securing basic human needs. Despite its undeniable strengths, The Revenant will not receive 5* from me. Iñárritu is, after all, a considerably better director than a screenwriter. His hero represents a master in survival, whom even James Bond would envy. Escaping from an Indian encirclement or enduring a grizzly bear attack is one thing, but endless immersion in the icy water of a mountain river gripped by the cold of winter and crossing snowy mountains is another. Since the tragedy of the Titanic and the Allied convoys to Murmansk, we know how long it takes for a person to succumb to cold water, and it is not even hours, more like minutes. Glass would have frozen to death countless times over. To top it all off, a pursuit of a fugitive by two men ensues. I understand that Iñárritu needed a spectacular ending - a typical western finale of a man-to-man fight, but he should have handled it more cleverly (for example, with an avalanche). In real life, at least a dozen exceptionally motivated men would have set out after the thief who turned the fortress inhabitants into beggars. Overall impression: 85%.
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An arty bloodbath about revenge with amazing camera, excellent Hardy and precise DiCaprio. A raw atmosphere full of mud, blood and hyperthermia accompanied by Ryuichi Sakamoto’s incredibly evocative music that sucks you in from the first minute. You gasp for breath in the freezing cold water, you instinctively scream when the grizzly attacks - you live with the hero. A meditative, raw picture, technically perfect and clean incredible in terms of acting (even though it’s disputable to what extent physical exhaustion is an act) with twelve Oscar nominations. Tom Hardy’s performance is just the icing on the cake. Pure humanity.
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The event of 2015. From the first scene of the camp ambush it is clear that the filmmaking is on another level (the camera and the minimum of editing!). Although many things are unnecessarily discussed (e.g. the actors), the experience of watching this raw and dirty survival story was widely expected, Iñarritú is at his strongest in his depiction of anything. In terms of the script, it’s nothing too revelatory, after all, the driving force behind the entire film is revenge – one of the most primal and rewarding themes. But the hallmark that this Mexican manages to imbue it with through his elaborate formal style makes for a uniquely opulent and pure genre film. It is too long – its single flaw. If they had just stayed strictly down-to-earth and avoided the Terrence Malick-like dream sequence, it would have been flawless.
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As long as the virtuoso Lubezki is at the helm, the film is a spectacle redefining the excellence and emotional depth of visual design. The contact and supremely naturalistic cinematography, on which drops of water and blood or steaming from the mouth of a panting bear and the gripping several-minute expositions are on par with the opening half-hour of Saving Private Ryan in terms of the level of experience, and, together with the minimalistic score and the atmospheric environment, create a fantastic opening. The first hour of Revenant is for me the most breathtaking audiovisual sequence not of this year, but perhaps of the whole century. But then the traditionally over-ambitious director Iñárritu takes the initiative after the angry and embittered Leo digs himself out of the grave to seek revenge, and the hitherto raw and straightforward story begins to give way to his incomprehensible artistic ramblings with heart-rending flashbacks and constantly repeated existential platitudes, which not only fundamentally slow down the story at a stage when it should be emotionally culminating and building on the overwhelmingly distinctive character of the opening minutes, but more importantly, their poeticism and wise moralising are unsuited to a cinematic adventure where the motifs and the characters' sense of life are so primitive and essentially basic. So why, even after repeated viewings, was I seriously considering the highest rating? In the same way that I fell in love with Stanley Kubrick's films, because they are different, unbound by convention and sharply personal (which may not suit everyone and I understand the criticism), I have gradually fallen in love with Revenant and its different, physical approach to storytelling and respect for life, tied to the wild and beautiful nature as much as Lubezki's supersensory 5D cinematography and Iñárritu's accessible philosophy, which may overstretch life, but doesn't detract from the atmosphere of revenge, hope, will and constant physical threat. And finally, even the most expensive attractions of the show, the two stellar central actors, shine and struggle together impressively even outside the story – but while the overrated DiCaprio doesn't have that much to play with, and the uniqueness of his creation lies only in wrestling with countless physical barriers, Hardy reigns supreme as an actor and handles his bastard with such bravura and naturalness that you are compelled to root for him. I confess, that in the corner of my soul I did, and perhaps that's why what bothers me the most is the readable predictability and inevitability of the plot, which, unfortunately, is in no way connected to fatefulness – the fact that the film turns out the way it does, to put it in another way, was included in the annual manifesto of rustic logic a hundred and fifty years ago, although they could hardly have believed then that one man would survive a bear attack, hypothermia, two Indian attacks, a fall off a cliff and a man-to-man fight with a guy 50 kg heavier.
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The Revenant can be summed up in one word: intensity! Everything in this film is pushed to the max — the acting, the cinematography, the direction, the setting. DiCaprio's performance is a standout, delivering an emotional and physical tour de force with minimal dialogue. Leaving the theater, I was overwhelmed with a mix of emotions that took time to process, but one feeling was clear and unmistakable: sheer awe. Directors like Iñárritu and actors like DiCaprio and Hardy remind us that modern cinema can still deliver timeless masterpieces.
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Alejandro González Iñárritu is truly one of the most distinctive directors of recent years, there is no doubt about that - I was personally captivated by his films 21 Grams and Babel, which had a suffocating atmosphere and a fairly complex narrative line. As far as The Revenant is concerned, it is also a very solid and in many ways a quality film that certainly didn't leave me cold - and not only because of the fact that it depicted a harsh winter. Every one of the factors that make a good film is noteworthy. If I say that Leonardo DiCaprio will finally get an Oscar this year, I'll be carrying firewood into the forest, but what the hell, he suffered through this role at least half as much as his movie character Glass, so he deserves the audience's admiration and both thumbs up (and that Oscar, dear Academy!). The rest of the cast didn't slack off either and took on their parts with verve, but Leo's evocative quest for revenge trumps them all. From a technical point of view, this is a masterful piece of filmmaking, and I would like to single out the cinematography, music, special effects and make-up. Of the visuals, the most memorable were the magical natural scenery and the very good and authentic capture of the action and fights (e.g. the really long and choreographed scenes at the beginning of the film). The dense atmosphere was supported by the music, which was simple in principle, but all the more effective and impressive. As far as the digital animals were concerned, I was satisfied, because it is impossible to create a perfect illusion of reality, unless you can get close to it – so the looks of the bear, the cubs, the bison and the wolves did not irritate me much. Last but not least, I must mention the frighteningly realistic portrayal of the actors, which perfectly reflected all the hardships and tribulations the characters had to go through. A truly well-made drama from the frozen north, which stands out for its acting performances and harsh rawness, and even if I don't give the film a full score, because after all the aforementioned films took me more, I still appreciate this work very much.
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This is one of those movies that I probably won't want to watch again, but it's still an unforgettable experience, for several reasons. There's the incredibly assured direction, minimalist yet powerful acting performances (especially within the dialogue), captivating cinematography that dazzles, and ultimately, a simple story executed with great generosity. It’s great, but I'll only watch it once.
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Judging by what you can find about the movie online, the filming must have been a complete nightmare for the crew. The final result is really worth it, though. The movie is raw and it will make you chill to the bone, but it is brilliantly filmed and the atmosphere full of brutality is incredibly absorbing (in a good way). Like Birdman, Revenant isn’t for everyone, but I enjoyed it all the way through. I don't know if it's worth betting on the Oscars, but the great DiCaprio and Hardy should really be nominated (and DiCaprio deserves to win). There’s no question about the golden hat-trick for Lubezki for Best Cinematography.
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