If the rumours are true, filming The Revenant was nothing but hardship. A “living hell” of a shoot, according to whistleblowers, with reports of the cast freezing in the Canadian wilderness and multiple crew members quitting under the tough conditions.
The suffering came, in part, due to director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s determination not to use extensive CGI and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s fondness for natural light. From the look of the first full-length trailer, their puritanism seems to have paid off.
The Revenant looks glorious. It’s a grim revenge western, set in 1823, about a fur trapper (Leonardo Dicaprio) on the warpath after the murder of his son by a disloyal employee (Tom Hardy). After the garish flair of Birdman, it seems Inarritu’s savouring the chance to shoot the grit.
Light floods through the trees as the trapper runs from indigenous warriors, Hardy and his treacherous crew stumble upon a massacre being picked apart by wild boar, the harsh sun shines down on frenzied, bloody murder. It looks hard and uncompromising. A starkly different prospect to much of the more conventional contenders being offered up for Oscars next year.
Hardy ducked the question when asked by the Guardian if The Revenant shoot was as bad as reported. Whatever the answer, however much it hurt, it seems the suffering might have been worth it.
Guardian News & Media Ltd, 2015
