When I first read that the team behind Birdman were intended to do The Revenant, I thought, how they will pitch this project to the studio. If you think of this using Hollywood lingo, I will say that the idea will be Dances With Wolves meets Man vs Wild meet Gladiator. Sounds crazy right?. But in a way is what this film is about: Empowering native Americans, by putting the whites as the bad guys, then having the main character survive a pretty traumatic experience in the wilderness in order to avenge the death of a love one and finally succeed.

Everything sounds pretty cool in paper, but if you have a director like Alejandro Gonzales Iñarritu behind, is probably less simple and more elaborated tale. The Revenant is the story of a group of trappers that are hunting in the Louisiana Purchase territory under the command of Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson). Suddenly they been ambush by the Arikara tribe, which cost the lives of part of Captain Henry team. In the group they have a very experience guide Hugh Glass (Leonardo Di Caprio) which is traveling with his son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck) half white, half Native America thanks to Glass relationship with a woman from a tribe. The trappers leader is John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) who seems to be antagonist of the whole expedition.

After the group escape from the Arikara ambush, they decided to leave their boat behind and continue by foot in order to escape from the tribe. The trip becomes more complicated when Glass is attached brutally by a grizzly bear, who is trying to protect her cubs. The group decided to carry Glass with them, until Fitzgerald pressure Henry to leave him behind and sacrifice him.

Alejandro Gonzales Iñarritu directs this masterful film with a very strong vision, the film was shot chronologically allowing the actors and the team create a powerful story. Emmanuel Lubezki cinematography is beautiful and is so intimate, perhaps because he use natural light most of the time, in order to keep the film uniqueness. Leonardo Di Caprio and Tom Hardy delivers a great performances which I believe deserve to be rewarded. Ryuichi Nakamoto, Alva Noto and Bryce Dessner original score is a work of art that blend perfectly in the film visuals.

The Revenant is a stunning film that is not only the tale of sacrifice, journey and struggle, it’s also a film that represents rawness of life and beauty and the same time. Life is like that: rough and beautiful. You just have to find a way to live with both.