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By Sandra Olmsted

Writer/director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárittu’s latest film, The Revenant, chronicles, in part, the true story of a frontier scout left for dead in territories that will become North and South Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska during the winter of 1823-1824. Based on Michael Punke’s 2002 fact-based novel of the same name, the story is both a tale of revenge and of wraithlike return from the dead.

When Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio), a scout mauled by a bear and eventually buried alive by an unscrupulous rival, John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), he survives despite many odds. Iñárittu and co-writer Mark L. Smith add another reason for Glass to come after Fitzgerald by giving Glass a teenage son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), who is half Pawnee, and who Fitzgerald kills.

The cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki and the crisp clear sound design by Randy Thom make The Revenant an immerse experience into the bleak wintry landscapes, lonesome sounds of nature, and the deep cold of Glass’ crawling and clawing his way back to civilization alone. Starting with an initial skirmish between the local Pawnee tribe and a contingent of trappers, Iñárittu also uses immerse editing and storytelling techniques in the violent encounters which place the audience in midst of the fighting as much as the D-Day invasion did in Saving Private Ryan.

Led by the high-minded Capt. Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson), the remaining trappers grab as many pelts as they can and jump on their boats for a hasty retreat down river. Eventually they abandon the boats and hide their pelts in favor of an overland route to the safety of a fort. Capt. Henry relieves on Glass’ knowledge and skill to get them over the mountains and home until Glass’ encounter with a mother grizzly bear.

Although the company tries to carry Glass over the increasingly difficult trail, the severity of his injuries and his apparent nearness to death prompts Capt. Henry to ask for volunteers to stay behind, wait for Glass’ death, and give him a proper burial. Hawk, Fitzgerald, and a naive, easily manipulated, young man, Jim Bridger (Will Poulter), stay behind with Glass, and their situation is fraught with tensions of family loss, threats of attack, and survival in the wilderness.

Once Glass begins his lonely trek back to civilization to seek revenge on Fitzgerald, he encounters Hikuc (Arthur Redcloud), the last survivor of a band of Native Americans. Hikuc helps Glass break his fever. Once again alone, Glass comes across a band of French trappers who have taken Powaqa (Melaw Nakehk’o) as a sex slave. Although he is trying to save the girl, Glass gets in between a rescue mission by her father, the Arikara warrior Elk Dog (Duane Howard) and the trappers.

Through all his adventures, Glass experiences flashbacks and visions of his dead wife and child and of the massacres and of pleasant, days on the plains. While these add a dimension of Native American spiritualism to the film and utilize the cinematic storytelling techniques that Iñárittu has mastered, they also add length to the film. This makes it feel somewhat unsolved or incomplete because Glass’ deceased wife tells him to “keep breathing” while enticing him towards an afterlife of warm summer days in complete contrast to the bleak, alien cold he is suffering.

DiCaprio’s extreme, moving embodiment of Glass is complimented by fine performances by the entire cast, especially Navajo actor Redcloud, Hardy in a villainous turn, Gleeson and Poulter. Thanks to the cinematography and the sound design, Iñárittu’s The Revenant is an immersive experience in nature and survival on the American frontier, which makes one wonder how a great nation was forged from such an inhospitable land. The immersiveness of the film techniques exude the chill of the landscape right into the theater to chill the audience.

A Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation release, The Revenant is rated R for strong frontier combat and violence including gory images, a sexual assault, language and brief nudity. Running a bleak, interminable 156 minutes, The Revenant opens Friday, Jan. 8 with some theaters showing it on Jan. 7.

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