The Revenant

Stunning cinematography, atmospheric music, a great Tom Hardy and some riveting scenes. But if the protagonist crawling through the woods for those 156 minutes had been someone I cared even a little bit about, I probably would have had a lot more fun. A good and in some ways exceptional film that I never want to see again in my life. (06/01/2016)

There aren't many of these realistically dirty, narratively unkempt films that feel like the filmmakers have actually gone back 200 years, and actually I can't remember any from the last few years. Raw action, where you can feel the blood and pain, physical contact fights taken in one long shot, and beautiful visual compositions of breathtaking nature; and snow and mud and filthy actors everywhere – the film crew must have had their fun too. The simple story doesn't hurt at all, because it goes to the heart of the characters and their physical and mental hardships. The complete opposite of the mannerist, self-absorbed Birdman, where I didn't care about the characters' fates at all. Together with Sicario, the best film of 2015. (02/01/2016)

So intensely destructive that at the very end, I felt like Glass himself. Broken, torn apart, utterly ruined, down to the marrow and bone. But unlike him, I would give up practically instantly and just wait for death. He crawls, struggles, and in various croaky ways tries to reach his archetypal goal through Leonardo DiCaprio's thrilling interpretation, to the point where even the winter wind on the way back from the cinema felt like the most pleasant spring breeze. I love the classic concept of the western genre, but this turning of traditions upside down needs to happen once in a while in every genre. Especially when the key scenes (the she-bear, the river, the bisons) are already iconic images from the moment of their debut. A magnificent epic and the most intimate rebirth in one. (14/01/2016)

Leo will finally get his Oscar. And not because he turned in a better performance than in The Wolf of Wall Street, but because of how much he had to suffer for it. Such a large-scale and, thanks to its locations and weather, true survival movie with a stellar cast and cinematography by Lubezki does not need a thicker plot. IT IS ENOUGH THAT IT EXISTS. Just like it is enough for the Eiffel Tower to just stand there. Because for several decades there will be no other filmmaking project of similar proportions. The funny thing is that The Revenant’s lack of a denser story is criticized by the same viewers who repeatedly went to see the over-filtered Mad Max: Fury Road, in which there is not a single real exterior and someone drives a car through the desert for two hours only to decide to turn around just before reaching their destination. The story of The Revenant is a continual struggle for survival. The betrayal of a friend, meeting a Native American with a bleeding heart, helping the defenseless innocent. And the consequences of all of this. Fate and our ability to influence it. Karma. And for us contemporaries, also the realization that while we hope to have a good time, people before us hoped to survive. Every day. The Revenant’s poetic passages are not pseudo-art; they are art for masses, similar to those of Ridley’s Gladiator, just less cheesy, because Iñárritu expects some development from the mass audience over a decade. Alejandro, it’s incredible what you’re willing to do (and risk) to shoot the hitherto unseen. Chivo, you are a god. Amazing sound and makeup. By comparison, Alive and The Edge become mere snowflakes in The Revenant, flying in the wind of Dances with Wolves. Thank you, cinematography, once again after a long time. This is what I live for. (17/01/2016)

As long as during the first 30 minutes we capture the amazing promo reel of Lubezki's camera, which equilibristically flows through the space between panoramic and contact shots, it's captivating. But then comes the need to tell a story and work with the characters, and the master of shallowness Alejandro is suddenly back with everything that it encompasses. The means of storytelling diverts attention from what is told to us. The film has an incredibly-compiled screenplay full of coincidences, which is supposed to be based on ultra-realism, but in fact is constantly slipping out of it towards an attempt at a metaphysical anti-western. The symbolic plane, the game with landscape and flashy symbols, is so superficial and clueless that it’s shameful. Although Leo breathes like a frightened mule and practices the crawling lessons he learned in The Wolf of Wall Street, he basically has no acting to do (I was almost sorry for him during the scene in the ruined temple). The film becomes a superficial high school exercise in Jack London's tenacity, which, thanks to a number of physical details, unfortunately grows into a parody of itself - Glass is Iron Man between trappers and Meresiev of the 19th century. It is not a celebration of the tenacity of man, but of the superfluous ego of a creator who puts himself above the story and the character as a dubious god. Revenant is a rare spectacle, an intellectual exploitation and a film that brings nothing more than magnificent filming of landscapes and action. Otherwise, it's a boring camping guide and a college of starting fires. Where there is nothing, not even the tinder burns. Metaphysics for the poor from the grizzly among the overrated filmmakers. P.S. The bear takes it all, the best CGI scene ever. [50%] (05/01/2016)