Set in the icy high mountain wilderness of early nineteenth century America, the story, based on real events, tells of Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his determination to seek revenge for a murder committed by fellow fur-trapper John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). The through-line, however, concerns an old chief and his Pawnee braves tracking down the white men who have abducted the Indian’s daughter. This surely is intended as a homage to John Ford’s classic The Searchers (1956), only with Mexican director Alejandro G Iñárritu reversing the racial roles to accommodate a latter-day understanding of who the ‘savages’ were in the Wild West. It is an astonishing film of visceral beauty, confronting but never gratuitous violence and haunting animism, similar to Iñárritu’s previous Birdman for its focus on one man’s obsession, but abandoning the former’s wordiness in favour of action and raw physicality.
The opening sequence, in which the trappers for whom Glass is acting as guide are set upon by Indians, is riveting in its savagery, but it is then topped when he is attacked by a grizzly bear defending her cubs – the realism of the scene is stunning. Betrayed by Fitzgerald after the main party have headed for the nearest settlement, Glass is left to survive the bitterly cold, untamed environment with only the spirit of his dead Indian bride and mother of his son to sustain him – along with raw fish and buffalo innards.
The cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki, who shot Birdman and is another Mexican, is nothing short of transcendent – rivers, snow-clad forests of towering conifers and craggy rock faces are every bit as evocative and mood-setting as the Broadway of Birdman. For DiCaprio it would have been an exhausting assignment – he sleeps naked inside the carcass of a horse and spends a lot of time in freezing water – but he succeeds manfully, as does Hardy who, in a villainous role, has never been better. This is not a movie for the squeamish, being as blood-curdling as it is psychologically gruelling, but it should not be missed.
