The Revenant

The Book

Michael Punke's story is based on true historical events but includes a mix of real and imaginary characters and embellishes the facts.
Hugh Glass was a fur trapper in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, exploring and exploiting the wild frontiers in the early 19thC. He is savagely attacked by a bear defending its young, and the fur raiding party he is with decide to leave him behind as he is slowing them down. The party leave two of their number (young lad Bridger and wanted man Fitzgerald) to look after him but Fitzgerald persuades Bridger that Glass should be left to die and they commandeer his rifle and knife, thus leaving him nothing for protection or for hunting food.

Against the odds, Glass crawls his way to the river and gradually to help, with the thought of revenge keeping him going.




It gives a real gritty sense of the danger and threats - native americans, wolves, snakes - faced by such men in their pillaging of the untouched wilderness' of America.

It reminded me of recent read The Martian in terms of one man's struggle for survival and his step by step solving of immediate needs to get through, but whereas Andy Weir's novel was technical and scientific, The Revenant is primal and visceral. It takes a strong stomach to read the gory details of wounds and the eating of dead Bison guts without feeling queasy.


Official movie site


 The Film

The week of Blue Monday (the supposedly lowest point of the year) was perhaps not the best time to go and see The Revenant. Mood Boosting it is not!

In fact apart from some panoramic vistas of the natural wonders of North America, the film is just too unremittingly bleak. Ruichi Sakamoto's mournful soundtrack flows like the sluggish ice floed rivers to add to the gloom. Where the Martian chose to cut some of the hero's trails and suffering, Alejandro G. Iñárritu chooses to add more than the book and it becomes too much.

It starts with an attack on the trapper's camp by North American Indians that compares to the beach landings in Saving Private Ryan and continues upping the gore and guts. I am afraid when Glass starts cutting open his horse to empty the guts, I laughed as I just knew he was going to get inside it.

In the film version, Glass has been native himself, with a Native American wife and child. His wife has been murdered in a camp attack by the French. Her appearance to him in mystical dreamscapes whispering wise Native American words was unneccesary and distracted from the story. The son travels with Glass, but he is murdered by Fitzgerald as he tries to protect his father from "assisted suicide" after has been attacked by the bear (one of the two amazing pieces in the film - the other being a horse ride off a cliff) and this then gives more impetus to revenge.

Revenge is heavily prevalent throughout, with more than one character driven by its powerful emotion - the Indian chief who leads the massacre on the trappers and pursues the escapees is trying to find the abducters of his daughter and will kill anyone to find her; the daughter herself, kept prisoner by a group of French and raped, castrates her violator.

In the book there is no closure - Fitzgerald makes good his escape and gets to Texas. It was refreshing and different to have this but with the death of a son in the film, this wasn't going to be possible - revenge needs to be exacted. Therefore we get the usual drawn out blood letting fight between the two main characters until justice is done.

Di Caprio deserves plaudits for enduring all the harsh scenarios he had to go through for the filming, but acting wise its all screams, grunts and flying spittle.. and that's my seven word quote for the film!

 

If you prefer something less bleak but with adventure, I'd suggest The Last of the Mohicans (book by James Fenimore Cooper) or if you like the snow and the Native American aspect, but like a bit of bleak then try Black Robe (book by Brian Moore). If you want all out bleak, you can't do better than The Road (book by Cormac McCarthy).