The Revenant (2016)

Alejandro G. Inarittu, the director we praised last year; Emanuel Lubezki, the cinematographer we also praised last year; Both made a new movie starring Leornado DiCaprio and Tom Hardy which tells a cat and mouse story. And the movie is AMAZING!

I’ve never felt the same way since Interstellar (2014). I’ve always tried to figure out the magic behind the brave and wonderful filmmaking of this movie, but it seemed hard. Imagine how much stress you would have to burden if you are left for 4 months in a remote location only with some filmmaking equiptments and someone told you to make a movie – it would be very exhausting. But this is all true for The Revenant.

When I watched this movie with Ricky and Timo, I told them my prediction of what focal length did Lubezki used: it was 24mm and above. But I was wrong. Turns out it was 12mm, 14mm, 16mm, and 18mm – more extreme than I predicted. How can you make a wide lense like that for close ups?! It’s pretty impossible without distracting the actor or the audience! Lubezki really showed us how to break the barrier. Lubezki only used the big focal length in the dream sequence and cutaways. Also, in this terrain, Lubezki managed to capture some beautiful shots of the forest, even though the film used digital captured (with Arri Alexa 65 and Arri Alexa M). Quite the contrary of The Hateful Eight if you ask me. Because The Hateful Eight used a 70 mm film (Ultra Panavision 70) to produce the emotions not the landscape – it was a waste of money. I think The Revenant should be the one who uses the 70 mm format.

The movie used mostly long shot and long take to present the story and it’s amazing! Consider it Birdman (2014) in the snowy forest (well not as extreme as Birdman). The film features many of Lubezki signature shot – blood spill in front of the glass of the camera. Although the film uses a lot of tracking shots from man walking until horse riding, the film didn’t use ANY vehicle (cars or helicopters) to move the camera. They only used a steadicam, a snow dolly, and a Jib. Go see the movie, you’ll know what I mean.

The other thing that blew my mind was the no use of artificial light. They only used the pure sunlight from the golden hour in the morning and dawn. So they had only a couple of hours of shooting everyday. The struggle was real!

The story was altered from the original, but it was for the best. When I mean the best, it was really THE BEST. Not like Star Wars Episode 7, we already knew what would happen – the good guys destroy the thing and claim their victory. The characters were REALLY MOTIVATED. My heart was pounding hard when Leo’s character was fighting againts the bad man. I really don’t know if he would be alive or not. I doubt everything Leo’s character did. This is similar as Matthew McConaughey’s character in Interstellar. Besides Leo’s character, we have the supporting characters which were really moving the story – making the doubts in the story development more doubting. And the film used many visual storytelling. This film SHOWS, not TELLING. THIS IS PURE MOTION PICTURE CINEMA!

Oh yeah, FYI, Leo really ate that raw bison meat.

The costume for this film was amazing. I like the bear skin clothes taken from the bear who attacked Leo’s Character. It was a reminder that Leo’s character was a badass and not a quiter.

I seemed to notice the minimal use of scoring. Which was great, it almost felt like No Country For Old Men (2007). It was thrilling the way it is! The film also features the minimal use of CGI – even the film didn’t use bluescreen.

The film was made for the love of filmmaking and the encounter challeges. Everyone in the production of the film was putting their standard on the top of the highest mountain and tried to reach there, which they successfully reached. No wonder it was nominated in 12 categories in the Academy Award (Oscar). I think Inarritu, Lubezki, and Leo would win this year.

The Verdict:

The movie made the standard of filmmaking jump waaayyyy up, if the target of the best films was 10 out of 10, this movie wanted to be 14 out of 10.