Alejandro González Iñárritu is back on probation! After 21 Grams, I decided that I would never see his overwrought, highly contrived films in theater and the hateful Babel just confirmed my initial impression. I gave him a second chance because of Michael Keaton. After seeing and loving Birdman: or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) in theaters and Biutiful on Netflix streaming, Iñárritu was back in circulation. I was actually excited to see The Revenant, especially because Leonardo DiCaprio is amazing in everything. I purposely read or saw nothing related to The Revenant. I knew The Revenant was shorter than The Hateful Eight so length was not a deterrent. The Revenant is absolute Hollywood dreck with art house pretensions of exploring the human spirit. The Revenant does have amazing performances and wonderful cinematography, but it is so contrived and heavy-handedly bleak that I have half-expected an asteroid to hit or a tsunami to wash over the frozen tundra to further ratchet up the stakes.
If I was generous, I would say that The Revenant reminds us of how hard it was to live in the untamed America and the insignificance of human or animal life against the massive landscape, but that isn’t true. The Revenant is completely bleak and joyless filled with meaningless, unnecessary action to keep the audience interested except for one scene of joy when Glass and his Native American rescuer stick out their tongue to taste snowflakes. Yes, it was hard, but it wasn’t always joyless and grim even in the face of violence and stark nature. There was art and innovation. Living and surviving are not the same things. To truly depict the human spirit, The Revenant needed to show more than just grim determination, death and revenge. And don’t give me that BS that it is because I am a woman and can’t handle the brutality. I love violence in movies-stylized and realistic. I’ll take City of God all day everyday over this trite garbage disguised as art house magnificence.
I hate Babel and Crash. They take the worst ethnic stereotypes, give one humanizing line and use the same beautiful long tracking shots of peacefulness then chaos then expect me to squeal in delight at their alleged meditation of the strength of the human spirit. GTFOH! I would rather watch a French film where nothing happens. I was held hostage for two and a half hours. I want my time and money back. Never again, Iñárritu, never again! The Revenant will win all the Oscars for its technical excellence, which is a reason to skip the Oscars this weekend. The Revenant is a revenge movie that trots out the worst stereotypes of all people, including and especially Native Americans.
After seeing The Revenant, I decided to read a little about Hugh Glass’ life and was infuriated to discover how the story was sensationalized in the most shameless Hollywood fashion. Honestly I would have been happy with two and a half hours of a guy alone struggling in the wilderness with no further explanation, but instead I got endless absurd action sequences. Because Iñárritu directed The Revenant, it won’t be written off as an empty typical Hollywood action movie with a veneer of philosophical meditation.
SPOILERS
Compare and contrast the movie story with the real one. In The Revenant, Iñárritu takes a page from Biutiful to flesh out Glass’ history and psychological life as a man who once had a Native American wife who died at the hands of American soldiers and almost lost his son. There are a lot of panning long shots until a group of American trappers are attacked by Native Americans then it is chaos. A handful of Americans escape down the river. We later found out when the Native Americans meet with French trappers in the open woods that they attacked the Americans because they thought the Americans had kidnapped the daughter. Thank you, I’ve seen The Searchers. Is this supposed to be a clever twist on The Western. Is it the 90s again?
There is still the trope of good versus bad Indians even as Iñárritu gives lip service to humanizing them. Glass’ son literally plays the role of John Wick’s puppy. He has no characteristics other than being angry at racism. We learn nothing about him because dad says be silent and invisible, which seems to be Hollywood’s universal cry to Native Americans. All he needed was a silent tear streaking down his face. The American trappers clearly have one shady character played by Bane with a country accent. He is so shady that someone born yesterday would not trust him with a plushy toy. Bane is not a fan of Glass, played by DiCaprio, for various reasons, but he is also racist. A mama bear attacks Glass, who successfully kills the bear, but should be dead. The two most sympathetic characters, the two baby bears, run for the hills and are hopefully OK without their mom.
Because the Americans are still trying to get away from the scary Indians, they leave Glass in the care of his teen son, Bane and another teen who is honorable in theory, but becomes Bane’s reluctant intern. I would not let Bane watch my bag if I was getting up to go to the bathroom, but sure. It is not long before Bane kills Glass’ son, deceives his intern and buries Glass alive so they can leave before the attacking Native Americans find them.
NOW Glass can move. The Native Americans are such good trackers that they just track him, not Bane and his intern or the other American trappers. They repeatedly attack him even though he clearly does not have a girl with him. This is so stupid. Never believe Iñárritu because of one line of dialogue. These are the old scary Indians of classic Westerns who will inexplicably attack anyone.
Glass bumps into a different Native American man who has also lost his family. This guy tends to his wounds, feeds him, then is inexplicably lynched by the French trappers, who turn out to have kidnapped and raped the Native American girl. So how did they hide her from her people? They were in the open when they met. How has she not died of exposure? Glass becomes impossible white man, kills all the bad French guys except one and leaves her alone and he takes one of their ponies. So the French are the bad guys and the Americans aren’t? Does Iñárritu eat Freedom Fries? What is going on? Did I mention that she is just alone in the vast, unforgiving wilderness with no cell phone so how is she going to survive forget get back to her home? It doesn’t matter.
DiCaprio is run off a cliff by her avenging clan like Coyote in the Road Runner cartoon. He is of course fine. The Revenant is stupid. The horse dies and joins the horse from The Walking Dead to say, “Now isn’t that some BS. How are we dead, but our impossible white guy isn’t?!? Aren’t there impossible horses? All lives matter!”
Lone French guy goes to American camp where Bane and his intern meet up with their boss who practically tells them where he keeps the money. Lone French guy brings Glass’ son’s canteen so Bane knows that it is on like Donkey Kong, is apparently an expert safe cracker and skedaddles before a vengeful Glass arrives, which he does soon after they do despite his massive injuries. Idiot boss decides that the best course of action is to go out alone to get Bane, which Batman would advise against. (My friend suggests that this isn’t utterly ridiculous because maybe boss didn’t want his men to know that he couldn’t pay them.) Glass insists on going with him. Bane kills idiot boss quickly. Glass outthinks him long enough to have epic grapple complete with picturesque avalanches. (This is when I expected the tsunami. Seriously when is this movie going to end). Glass gets the upper hand, but when the attacking Native Americans appear randomly with the now reunited formerly kidnapped girl, Glass lets them finish off Bane because they are like a force of nature/God and his earlier Native American friend said revenge is in the Creator’s hands. Thanks, guys. Glass gets reunited with his wife and succumbs to his injuries FINALLY, or he is just having more visions.
Here is Hugh Glass’ real story. No Native Americans attack. There is still a bear fight. He still gets ditched in stages because people have crap to do, and they don’t have time to carry his heavy, dying ass or wait for him to die. They leave behind two people to wait and bury him. THERE IS NO SON!!!! The two steal his stuff and say, “Bye, Felicia.” Glass has to walk or take a raft alone while injured for 200 miles with only Native Americans to help him. That is right. NOT ONE SINGLE NATIVE AMERICAN ATTACKED HIM WHILE HE WAS INJURED!!!! It takes him 6 weeks to get back to the fort. After he gets home and recovers, he forgives the intern. He hunts down the older guy to get his gun. THAT IS IT!!!! I HATE THE REVENANT.
I would have happily watched a movie even without the bear attack, but just at the point where you see two guys leaving a critically injured man alone in the woods and watch him be alone for six weeks with the occasional appearance of friendly Native Americans. I hope that someone else takes a stab at Glass’ story. Imagine a movie about the human spirit that spurs one to not only survive, but then spend time to track down those who betrayed you and then forgive them!
