Alejandro González Iñárritu storms back into theatres barely more than a year after the release of his Oscar best picture winner (and one of my personal favourites of 2014) Birdman. Expectations were high. Does The Revenant match his previous effort? Probably not, but The Revenant still demands your attention.

Set in the 1820s, The Revenant follows the journey of Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio), an American frontiersman who is injured and left for dead by his comrades. Refusing to bow to death, he begins an arduous battle against nature to seek revenge against those who betrayed him. But don’t mistake this for your typical “cowboys and Indians” story. This film depicts a harsh world where the temperature, wildlife, and inhabitants all have it in for you.

And when I say it depicts a world, I use a word that doesn’t serve justice. The cinematography in The Revenant is exceptional. If ever there was a film that shows the redundancy of 3D, it’s this. The visuals burst from the screen with such vigour you almost feel yourself become endangered by the icy tundras and labyrinthine forests. What’s more incredible is how everything was filmed in the wilderness purely with natural light. Remember the struggle when you tried taking a selfie in a room too dim, but the flash was too bright? Well, try doing all of that with only the sun, moon, and fire to illuminate your face. While fighting a bear.

Long takes and tracking shots are certainly in fashion, but in The Revenant they are no gimmick. While Birdman used on the technique to support its themes, The Revenant’s one-take scenes are astoundingly tense. Their nature immerses you further, as the lack of cuts removes any sense of doubt that you’re viewing real events. Everything is vivid and unpredictable, lending terror to every does of peril our hero suffers. These long takes are used to great effect, reinforcing the visuals to create a fluid and threatening experience.

If I haven’t sold you on The Revenant yet, then it’s worth nothing that it contains DiCaprio’s best performance. We all knew he was great, but never have I him in such a challenging role. Make no mistake, The Revenant is a brutal, gritty film, and not for the squeamish. Glass has only his resourcefulness to guide him through such a dangerous place, and DiCaprio plays him to perfection. Not only do we see the vulnerable character constantly struggle against all sorts of peril, we see in his eyes a frighteningly bold determination to survive and exact revenge.

The filming must have been painstaking, acting in the freezing wasteland in extremely long takes. The commitment to the role is what makes this performance soar above his already great record. You can feel the cold, every scratch on his skin, and every trauma. It all adds to the immersion.

Supporting actors Tom Hardy and Domhnall Gleeson also do a great job. Their well realised characters are ones you can feel for, as they’re stuck in the same rotten land as our hero. I’m usually terrible at noticing imperfections in accents, but Hardy’s was a little inconsistent.

Now, the film did grind to a halt after the start of the second act. Due to the nature of the story, the film had to take its time, else risk losing some of its realism. But I mean, it stopped. This didn’t bother me so much because I was so immersed by the breathtaking visuals and DiCaprio’s performance, but from a storytelling standpoint it was a little indulgent to dwell so much when there was no real need to. Especially as it added to its running time, resulting in a greedy 156 minutes.

My other issue was how some of the themes didn’t quite mesh with the story. There’s a lot of symbolism that felt forced and seemed outside of its core ideas. Usually I’m all for these sorts of daring themes and ideas, but this is the sort of picture that hasn’t become clearer over time, and has added some murkiness to what was a rich and compelling revenge story.

But in the end, its flaws only held back some of my enjoyment. They didn’t detract from the intensity of many of its scenes, and the immersive atmosphere created by the wondrously hypnotic blend of Iñárritu’s long takes, DiCaprio’s impressive performance, and some of the best cinematography I’ve ever seen. See this one in the cinema.

8-9