The Revenant

This might be the film I like best by Alejandro González Iñárritu. It's a visceral and fantastic western that looks like a fevered dream thanks to Emmanuel Lubezki's spectacular cinematography. The action sequences are framed in medium shots and close ups, getting us right in the middle of it. The camera gets fogged up by human breathing, and smeared with blood, it does not attempt to hide the reflection of the sun on the lens. Sequences of carnage are relieved by floating vistas of awe inspiring nature. It is an exciting movie and a visual feast.
For once, Iñárritu's boundless enthusiasm for raw feeling, which tends to be overbearing and borderline kitschy in most of his films, suits the story and the surroundings. Based on the novel of the same name and on real characters, it takes place in the breathtaking wilderness of Montana in 1823, where bands of American and French trappers fight over pelts, while they endure flying arrows and scalping from the Native American tribes whose land they have stolen and tarnished.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays captain Hugh Glass, a man who is travelling with his teenage son (by a Native American woman) with a group of trappers as they are attacked by a tribe. Glass is then seriously injured in an astounding mano a mano with a grizzly bear and left for dead by Fitzgerald (the excellent Tom Hardy) an insubordinate, conniving member of the party.
It is a story of survival and rebirth fuelled by revenge, with some magical realist elements, thankfully kept in check by the director. Like any classic western it is a story of morality. When survival is at stake, decency is hard to come by. The stakes in this movie are truly life or death, and the operating ethos is lawlessness, but there is always a moral compass in the love of a father and son, and in the precarious ethical behavior of a couple of men. Ethical behavior strikes humans randomly. Some men have it in them, some don't. The ubiquitous and excellent Domnhall Gleeson plays captain Andrew Henry, in charge of the expedition, who has to make a Solomonic decision about Glass' fate when he becomes a burden to the group. Between the upstanding (Glass), and the amoral (Fitzgerald), Henry represents half measures, the majority of us, who fall as short of heroism as we do of villainy. He's an interesting character: a bad manager who does the right thing halfway, going through the motions of authority while washing his hands of real responsibility.
As Glass painfully recuperates, trying to survive in the rough with almost superhuman effort, the humans persecute each other, forging vendettas and partnerships across a landscape almost as cruel as they are.
The Revenant provides a glimpse into the foundational myth that shows how brutally this country was born. The elements for violence and strife are there from the beginning. In the pristine forests and majestic mountains blood is spilled for pelts and money, Native American villages are burned and pillaged, racism is as natural as the landscape, people endure untold misery, men seem only a step removed from beasts.
It's literally the wild west, where the greatest motivation is lucre and, when violence intervenes, revenge. It's easy to dismiss revenge as futile and barbaric, but it is one of those basic human feelings that boil up despite our every attempt at civilization. Revenge is informed by a sense of justice, but is it moral? Is it useful? All westerns are about the tension between the vigilantism of revenge and the civilizing, yet precarious influence of the law. In The Revenant, in the middle of the vast forest, revenge is the only law.
Iñárritu stages thrilling action sequences and he is a good director of dramatic action. DiCaprio rises to the occasion in a virtually wordless performance of heroic stature, but as the icily calculating, swaggering Fitzgerald, it is Tom Hardy who absconds with the picture. An impressive Will Poulter plays the young Bridger, a kid with a conscience who gets pummeled by Fitzgerald's cunning.
Even if it is pointless, revenge is a powerful, visceral motivation. We root for the good guy and we still thirst for him to set things right. Intellectually, we may look down upon revenge as brutal and uncivilized, but we gorge on it emotionally, until we ask: to what end?

5 By El Chivo and 5 By El Negro

El Chivo, Birdman and El Negro

Lists are fun! So are nicknames!
Here are two lists by yours truly. Click on the links to read them on Manero.com.

1.
A handy list of must-see films photographed by Emmanuel Lubezki, aka "Chivo" (Goat), cinematographer extraordinaire, winner of back to back Oscars, among many other awards, for Gravity and Birdman.

2.
A ranking, from best to worst, of the films of Alejandro González Iñárritu, who just cleaned up at the Oscars.

Remember Sean Penn's controversial remarks when he handed his pal his Oscar for Best Movie? Let me refresh your memory:  Penn said, "who gave this sonofabitch his greencard"? Needless to say, the internets collapsed from outrage. But the director was not offended, because a) He and Penn are friends. b) The badly thought out remark (it took Penn a long pause to think of that joke, which landed as badly as the entire telecast) was meant to be ironic. It's not like Sean Penn works with Sheriff Arpaio deporting wetbacks in Arizona.

In any case, the most delicious irony these days of political correctness gone amok, is that Iñárritu's longtime nickname is -- brace for it -- "El Negro": "Black" Iñárritu, because of the swarthy color of his skin.  Looks like it has not fazed him. If it has, well then, his four Oscars in one night will show 'em.  I'm curious what the outraged, oversensitive, tone deaf to irony, humorless masses have to say about this little tidbit. Particularly the Mexicans who are offended by Penn's remark but think that calling someone "Negro" is harmless and endearing.

Newsflash: everybody's racist; some people more than others.
Everybody online: before you slather yourself in unctuous self-righteousness, please get a life.

Birdman vs. Boyhood

Gentlemen, ladies, place your bets.  Or don't.
Here's my take on why these two movies are the frontrunners for the Oscars this Sunday.

Birdman

Well, Alejandro González Iñárritu should certainly do comedy more often. This is the best film he has made since Amores Perros. He has always been gifted at the cinema of extreme emotion, and this material allows him to indulge in his trademark intensity without falling into sentimentality or melodrama. He has made a movie with a sense of humor. At last.
Now I can see why it is hard for the previews to convey the tone and the experience of this movie.  Birdman, Or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance is a really ambitious film about art versus commerce, love versus adulation, fame versus talent, ego and creative risk taking.
Riggan Thompson (the much missed and wonderful Michael Keaton), is a has-been movie star who found celebrity playing Birdman in a Hollywood comic book franchise. To expiate his mercenary sins, he is now orchestrating a comeback, starring in, directing and producing a serious play on Broadway. He has all the fame in the world but he wants his prestige back.
Riggan is putting everything on the line to make this show work, even if no one, including himself, thinks he can pull it off. It is seen as the vanity project of a washed up star and it doesn't help that a voice in his head, that of Birdman himself, is constantly questioning his artistic pretensions. We are inside the head of this man as he navigates the treacherous waters of celebrity and creative ambition.
Iñárritu films this as one continuous shot with the help of the great cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, aided by digital stitching. Usually, this kind of daredevil style distracts from the story, and ends up giving the audience headaches, but Lubezki and Iñárritu make it work. It is a visual tour de force. The camera closely follows the characters in endless motion through the narrow backstage confines of the St. James theater. This mimics the experience of being in Riggan's shoes, dealing all at once with his fear of the unknown, the vertiginous demands of everyone around him, from his lawyer and partner (Zach Galifianakis), to his estranged daughter (an excellent Emma Stone), to the actresses in the play (Naomi Watts and Andrea Riseborough), to his unhinged costar (Edward Norton). In all the razzmatazz, Lubezki finds moments of repose, his camera always at the service of the actors. The lighting is precise, eclectic and beautiful. It is seamless, expressive work, which should be honored with a seventh Academy Award nomination.
Iñárritu's films have always had great energy and visual verve, but this one is actually fun. He elicits compelling, if over the top, performances from all his actors, but my favorite is Edward Norton, happily chewing the scenery as Mike Shiner, a crazy actor with lots of talent but not so much fame. Norton is so electric and fun as an enthusiastic thespian douchebag with a smidgen of vulnerability, he should be in every movie. Why is he not in every movie?
Antonio Sanchez's drum score gives the film an extra jolt of energy, which is a bit much. The drums work really well when no one is speaking, but they irritate when the characters strain to be heard above them. Luckily, Iñárritu, who is not known for his restraint, tempers this sonic assault with a soundtrack of beautifully chosen classical music for the more lyrical moments, which are very welcome.
Birdman is very meta, what with the Raymond Carver references, actors who have been in superhero movies playing actors who have been in superhero movies, and a dose of teasing whimsy we're not sure if it is all in Riggan's head or not. But if you strip the technical fireworks, the showmanship and the sometimes labored references, the raw emotions of all those needy egos are there and they manage to be truly touching. Riggan is a beleaguered character, and though his ego and his need for validation are immense, they take an enormous beating from all quarters. He is trying. He is serious. And what he is doing is, in his world, heroic. A fantastic (both for its greatness and for being totally contrived) confrontation between Riggan and Tabitha Dickinson, the faux chief critic of the New York Times (the great Lindsay Duncan) gives you both sides of the thematic crux of the story. She berates Riggan for cheapening art with his fame, and he reads her the riot act by saying that by writing a review she is risking nothing, whereas he is putting his entire life on the line. They both have a point. I did not get a clear sense of where the writers' sympathies are. Would we rather watch what seems a pretty awful theatrical adaptation of an important work of literature, or would we rather be entertained by a cinematic roller coaster ride? I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Something like Birdman, which is trying to be artistic in a very entertaining way.