The Revenant tells the story of a man, mortally wounded and left for death. He fights against all odds to stay alive so that he can take the life of another man. He has no one left to love and no reason to live, but cannot allow himself to pass without taking revenge. Every time a glimmer of hope becomes bleak, he marks his anthem on stone, “he killed my son” and musters new energy to go on.
The Revenant is loosely based on Michael Punke’s novel about the legendary fur trapper, Hugh Glass. However, the film is not a biopic like Man in the Wilderness (1971) and should be considered a work of poetic fiction, akin to the films of Andre Tarkovsky. Mexican filmmaker, Alejandro Iñárritu, tells the story of a much darker side of American history - the genocide of the Native Americans.
In his Oscar winning role, Leonardo DiCaprio plays Hugh Glass, the revenant, and Tom Hardy plays Fitzgerald, the mindless murderer. DiCaprio and Hardy do not just play two different characters. Through their characters, they represent two entirely different generations of Americans – the fathers who protected their sons, and the ignorant fools who destroyed everything in their path.
The Revenant takes place in 1823, two decades after the Louisiana Purchase. In 1803, president Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the country by buying the former French territory from Napoleon with $15 million. Jefferson then sent Lewis and Clark on an expedition (the Corps of Discovery) to explore the undiscovered country, and consequently ordered the US army to “push” the Native Americans further to the west.
The film opens with a dream sequence. The village of Hugh Glass’ Native American wife (Pawnee tribe) is being massacred by the American troops. Only Glass and his son survive. There are many visual metaphors that suggest the ethnic cleansing of the natives, including mountains of buffalo skulls and frescos on a dilapidated church. In a scene, Glass witnesses a herd of buffaloes being hunted by white wolves.
The other theme is resurrection. A revenant is someone who comes back from the dead and we see this rebirth-motif multiple times as Hugh Glass emerges from the grave after being left for dead; the pupa-like teepee tent after his recuperation, and the carcass of a horse after the deadly snowstorm.
The movie is about parallels. There are two Red Indian tribes – the revengeful Arikara (the Ree) and the tolerant Pawnee. There are two groups of white fur trappers - the Americans and the French. As Hugh Glass chases Fitzgerald, the Arikara chief chases Glass. Glass lost his son, while the chief lost his daughter. As Glass travels through the vast landscape, he finds redemption in his soul. The film portrays how mother nature is both beautiful and terrible at the same time, and her rage is manifested in one of the most devastating scenes ever filmed - in the form of a mother bear.
Fitzgerald thinks he is patriot and is trying to protect his land from the savages, the “Red Indians”, who once almost scalped him. Ironically, the kindest person in the film is a Pawnee named Hikuc who not only saves Glass’s life but also heals his soul. At the end of the film, Glass recalls Hikuc’s words: “Revenge is in God’s hands.”
The Revenant tells us the love of the land cannot and should not surpass the love for one another, since nothing really belongs to us - the wilderness, the rivers, the wildlife - they all belong to mother nature. All we have is each other and we must learn to coexist. Patriotism should never be considered superior to humanity.
In the film poster, Leonardo DiCaprio accusingly glares at us, and the colour palette is that of the American flag – white, blue and flashes of red. Integration of the plot here was sublime.