THE BIG ISSUE The Big Issue - 11 January 2016 | Page 33
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SCREEN
FILM / EDWARD LAWRENSON
Nature in the raw
Leonardo DiCaprio captivates in this ferocious and
dark tale of revenge from the director of Birdman
O
ne of the more colourful stories
to have emerged from the
making of The Revenant is
that Leonardo DiCaprio eats
raw bison liver on camera.
Directing this tale of Hugh Glass, a
fur-trapper struggling to survive in the
snowy depths of the Midwest at the start
of the 19th century, Alejandro González
Iñárritu isn’t one for convenient fakery.
Filming only in natural light in sub-
zero remote locations, the 52-year-old put
cast and crew through punishing extremes.
Complaints about conditions on set made
the film one of the most talked about last
year. Producers rebufed the most outland-
ish of such reports but there’s no doubt The
Revenant was a tough, demanding shoot.
This is the kind of film in which sinking
one’s teeth into an uncooked bovine organ
amounts to just another day at the oice.
But the main reason that this scene feels
so convincing is that it looks that way. From
the gloopy substance of DiCaprio’s eating
material to the disgust that flinches on
the face of this confirmed vegetarian as
he swallows, the moment gives off an
unappetising whif of authenticity. And the
same is true of the rest of the film. In an
is pounced on, then clawed at by a creature
the size of a minivan, his body tossed
around like a ragdoll. It’s technically brill-
iant and viscerally intense, and the assault
leaves Glass grievously injured. Assuming
he’ll succumb to his wounds, fellow trapper
John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) volunteers
to stay with him, while the rest of the party
press ahead. Except Glass doesn’t die, so
Fitzgerald, keen to join the others, kills
Hawk and drags Glass into a shallow grave.
And yet Glass is still alive. What’s more,
he vows revenge against Fitzgerald.
Dragging himself out of his grave, he begins
a long pursuit of his son’s killer – across
those sweeping vistas, through icy river
torrents and avalanche-prone mountain-
scapes, encountering along the way
murderous racism from French trappers
and glimmers of redemption from Native
American wanderers.
The result is a gripping blend of psycho-
logical drama and epic adventure, brutal
and bloody but underpinned
with a delicate lyricism. Barely
saying a word, DiCaprio is
extraordinary. It’s a committed,
compelling and utterly convinc-
ing performance, one that is
sure to bag him his long-coveted
Oscar. If only for eating raw
bison liver, he deserves it.
era when so much on-screen spectacle is
magicked up by computers, the picture has
a fierce, forbidding, defiantly old-fashioned
sense of realism: the landscapes boast an
icy majesty that still can’t be equalled by
CGI. And if the actors look cold and dirty
and fed up, their breaths steaming up the
lens of ace cinematographer Emmanuel
Lubezki, then that’s probably because they
were at the time of the shoot.
This astonishingly vivid
sense of wilderness matters
because nature plays such a big
part in the story of The Revenant.
Hiding behind a wiry tangle of
beard, DiCaprio is Glass, one of
the fabled mountain men who
explored the West in advance of
white ‘settlers’. After he and his
fellow trappers flee an attack
by Native American warriors, Martial artist: Donnie Yen
Glass, accompanied by his plays a Wing Chun master FINAL REEL...
half-Pawnee teenage son Hawk,
Ip Man 3 is the third and final film
leads his exhausted comrades further up- in the lavish Cantonese-language biopic of
country. And there, in woods of primeval martial arts grandmaster Yip Man (whose pupils
included Bruce Lee). Hong Kong star Donnie
creepiness, Glass is set upon by a bear.
It’s for this bear attack that The Revenant Yen gives a fine performance as the ageing
will likely be remembered. In a long Wing Chun master. Look out for a cameo from
sequence without any obvious cuts, Glass Mike Tyson as a corrupt property developer.
THE BIG ISSUE / p33 / January 11-17 2016
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