The Revenant: DiCaprio's Battle with Nature

The Revenant, which rightfully won the Golden Globe awards for Best Film (Drama), Best Director, and Best Actor, is likely to take home all three Oscars, making it the third consecutive year that an Oscar for Best Director goes to a Mexican filmmaker. This new challenge comes from Alejandro González Iñárritu, a brilliant filmmaker known for amazing works like 21 Grams, Babel, and Birdman, who this time dares Hollywood; and strangely, he creates an anti-Hollywood film within Hollywood—and succeeds. Iñárritu's camera in Birdman was intensely close to the main character, using long shots to penetrate into the character's psyche and accompany us with him; however, this time everything is different: we don't know much about the main character, who—played by DiCaprio at his peak—finally has the chance to break the curse and win the Oscar statue. The Revenant is essentially a film that is strongly anti-narrative, with the entire plot summarized in a few short sentences. Iñárritu, aware of this, invites us to witness a full horizontal expansion rather than a longitudinal expansion of the story (which is entirely against the Hollywood flow). Beyond this brief storyline, the film confronts us with the most impactful images of the struggle between man and nature. Everything is set for Emmanuel Lubezki's camera (the same brilliant cinematographer from Birdman) to place a solitary human against a powerful nature, allowing Iñárritu to expand the struggle for survival across various layers of his work. The film is, in essence, a narrative of the will to survive against a nature that challenges with full force and invites humanity to death: from the attack of a bear (in one of the most astonishing scenes in cinema history that appears very realistic) to deadly cold and hunger, alongside the futile struggle of man against man due to skin color, which brings nothing but death. In this context, we face a tenacity that wants to survive at any cost [continuation of this paragraph reveals the film's ending]. His will to live is commendable, and when he entrusts vengeance to God—or nature—he can poetically experience death: he sees his deceased wife inviting him back to nature, the image fades to black, and we only hear his breaths becoming shallow. Iñárritu's art combines overt violence with a level of poetic beauty that merges stunning images of nature with a sense of dream and illusion, effectively linking death and life. Hugh's (DiCaprio) deceased Native American wife has a living presence in the film, and her voice is heard as part of nature in various images. The four main elements—water, earth, air, and fire—have a significant presence throughout the film, shaping its core theme regarding the struggle between man and nature—and ultimately yielding to nature and surrendering to it. The river water plays a crucial role in several key scenes (including the final scene), the warmth of fire saves his life multiple times, the earth invites him back, yet he emerges from the earth—grave—and the wind (air) spreads poetic whispers in nature. This entire collection is intricately intertwined, creating a strange combination that engages the viewer despite the absence of a story, reminding them of the primal violence of humanity within a dominating nature; with meticulously designed details that simultaneously celebrate humanity: in praise of will, love, and equality among humans, often referenced in a non-sentimental manner: from Hugh's connection with the chief of the Native Americans (where Hugh's son—with a Native American mother—is linked to the chief's daughter; both with respect and love regarding the father/child issue, one of the most beautiful aspects of humanity) to the rescue of a Native American girl from white aggressors, and finally, the piece of bread that a trembling white soldier leaves for the lone Native American woman to honor humanity.