The Revenant on BLU RAY - A Review by Mark Barry...

"...You Speak Of Honour When You Don't Know What It Is..." 

The Revenant on BLU RAY

Balls-to-the-wall, visceral, epic filmmaking - I haven't seen an audience glued to the screen and engaged both mentally and physically with a movie since the halcyon days of "Gladiator" way back in 2000. Make no mistake - Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "The Revenant" will make you bleed-baby-bleed and more than earns it mighty 12 Oscar nominations by way of sheer bravura and the amazing visual feast your presented with from the first frame to the last. All this and you sit there thinking - I know they're only piddly nancy-boy ‘actors’ in the real world - but the cast must have gone through physical Hell to get this level of ‘real’ in the can...

Having said that – 2015’s “The Revenant” from the Oscar-winning Director of last year's "Birdman..." has its minor problems for sure. At 2 hours 40 minutes it’s overly long (feels more like three hours) – and in a bid to make you feel like you're in the moment - the dialogue comes at you off-screen at times as characters shout and scuffle - but I'm not sure if that trick works. Plus you could argue that you spend 70% of the movie watching Leonardo DiCaprio crawling around in mud and on icy ground (a lot) and Tom Hardy's Jeff Bridges "True Grit" mouth-full-of-marbles mumbling can be very difficult to decipher at times too. And that last shot stills puzzles. But overall - these are trivial things given that I noticed many people holding in wee-wee because they couldn't bear to miss twenty seconds of it.

And then there's the scenery brought to you by Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki – a malevolent beast one moment - soul-stirring the next. You get 1820’s fur-trading British Columbia in the fall and winter – a relentless snowy wilderness with muck and more muck – creaking bare trees – icy breathes broken up by life-giving campfires – arrows in the neck – muskets blasting... Scene after scene seers its way into your brain - DiCaprio plunging into the icy waters of a river where he’s built a rock nook to trap fish swimming upstream – grabbing one of them with his bare hands and proceeding to munch into with ravenous teeth and starvation gusto – removing the innards and squatting naked inside of a felled horse to survive the night - buried in a clay grave dug for him by the greedy trapper John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and left for dead – an Indian he befriends that builds a tepee of branches and furs as the blizzard rages so that the wounded and collapsed Glass can let his wounds recover - and the final knife battle with Hardy’s curmudgeon character as the snow turns a different colour than white.

But even more memorable than those is one of the film's centrepieces. Out scouting the woodland one morning - the two-prong attack on DiCaprio's character Glass by a three-ton grizzly bear (defending her two cubs) left the audience breathless and coiled in their seats in genuine horror. How they filmed this sucker I will never know – but if this is CGI's capability in 2015 - then it’s amongst the best I’ve ever seen – period. Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto's instrumental music is haunting throughout too – huge string chords that feel as epic as the landscape and pack a mighty punch. Smartly Inarritu also does well to not let the rivers and mountains and forests dominate everything by having scenes of real emotion as DiCaprio's character talks to his Indian wife's ghost in their native tongue – mumbling to his son that everything's going to be all right - love transcending the elements that seem to want to kill you at every moment.

The huge and seriously dedicated ensemble cast is uniformly stunning and must be mentioned. Leonardo DiCaprio plays hunter and trapper Hugh Glass who has married an Indian girl (actress Grace Dove, herself a Shuswap Indian) and fathered a son Hawk (a breakthrough performance from Forest Goodluck). But soldiers raised their village to the ground (as they did much of the indigenous population) and murdered his wife who now comes to him in whispers and dreams. Trapper Glass therefore protects his boy with a near heathen tenaciousness as his half-breed origins and burnt face (from the initial village attack) are ridiculed by another force of nature – Pelt Trader John Fitzgerald (a towering performance from England’s Tom Hardy). Trying to keep all the savagery at bay is Captain Andrew Henry played by Ireland's Domhnall Gleason (Brendan Gleeson's son) – another properly brilliant performance after his superb turns in "About Time", "Ex Machina" and "Star Wars: The Force Awakens". But even more impressive is the young British actor Will Poulter who plays the cherub-faced Bridger - a frightened and gullible boy in a cunning man's world - he is magnificent here. The huge array of real Red Indians are cast from varying surviving tribes and are suitably ferocious and giving in their different guises – scalping the devil white man in one scene and trying to negotiate ‘honour’ with a bunch of drunken French trappers in another. The rage of what was done to them and their women and children permeates throughout the entire film.

But its DiCaprio and Hardy who hold the whole thing together – both putting in huge performances that deserve statues. Their warring duo dynamic reminds me of “Jeremiah Johnson” (1972) and “Seraphim Falls” (see reviews) where two frontier men fight it out in the elements with knives and hatchets and anything else that comes to hand. There’s a scene by a night time fire where Hardy’s character talks of his starving father in the wilderness who discovers God in a cluster of trees – Hardy’s chilling survivalist instincts are the stuff of budding actor’s dreams and will surely be used at the Oscar ceremony by way of demonstrating what a powerhouse he’s become. And if Leo doesn’t bag a statue for this film – then someone in the Academy needs to be led to the nearest snowdrift and dropped there in their Sears and Roebuck underpants...

When it’s released - the BLU RAY will be a feast for both the eyes and ears – and I’m pre-ordering that home-cinema monster today.

Besides - as the credits rolled I noticed that two of the real Red Indian Actors used (portraying a Pawnee Prostitute and an Arikara Warrior) were called  'Mariah Old Shoes' and 'Cody Big Tobacco'. This is my kind of movie.

“The Revenant” isn’t Laura Ashley cutesy or Daniel Boone sappy for damn sure – and not everyone will enjoy its hurting storyline and our even darker treatment of the indigenous population of such a breathtaking landscape. But it is an astonishing piece of ‘event’ cinema that demands your attention.

And when you think about the sheer amount of fluff and lazy sequels out there in 2015 (and yet to come in 2016) - that’s an achievement worth supporting with my comfy ass on them there wilderness seats...

"Babel" on BLU RAY – A Review Of The 2006 Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Film

Here is a link to Amazon UK to get this BLU RAY at the best price:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000NTPCL0

"…Three Kilometres…"

On a desolate Moroccan mountainside impoverished young brothers Ahmed and Yussef are testing out their exciting new manly acquisition - a Winchester M70 Rifle their father bought from a local guide Hassan for 500 Dirhams and a goat. They start out innocently enough (pot shots at Jackals) but sibling rivalry kicks in as they test Hassan’s claims that the gun is so good - the bullets can travel up to 3 kilometres. Yussef (the younger of the two) is the better marksman - so in jest he takes aims at a long tourist bus trundling up a dirt road far below. They laugh as nothing seemingly happens. But then the bus pulls in – screaming voices inside – they’re English-speaking tourists. Ahmed and Yussef look at each other and run.

Mr. Wataya proudly watches his deaf Japanese teenage daughter Chieko play fiercely competitive Volleyball with other mutes in a privileged Tokyo school gym (fabulous turns by Koji Yakusho of the original "Shall We Dance" and Rinko Kikuchi of "Pacific Rim"). Chieko is beautiful but is mentally tortured by the suicide of her mother only a year earlier and a subsequently difficult relationship with her father. But more obsessive than that is her burgeoning sexuality that no cool J-POP Japanese boy seems to want because of her language disability. She begins to go extreme lengths to get attention in shopping malls and even with her dentist as she lays prostate on his chair…

Amelia is a big-hearted middle-aged Mexican nanny (a stunning Adrianna Barraza) taking good care of two beautiful white children is Los Angeles while their warring parents Richard and Susan Jones (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) are holidaying in Morocco. But Amelia gets a phone call from Richard that his wife Susan has been shot and they’re holed up in a small town called Tazarine waiting for an American helicopter to get them out. Amelia will therefore have to cancel going to her son’s wedding that day in Mexico to look after the kids. But Amelia figures it will be ok (what can go wrong) and takes the young Debbie and Mike (Elle Fanning and Nathan Gamble) and her son Santiago (Gael Garcia Bernal) across the border in his beat-up car. But things go badly wrong. And on it goes to a honourable Japanese cop who works out where the Rifle originated…

Employing the same creative team he worked with on the equally compelling  "Amores Perros" (2000) and "21 Grams" (2004) (see review) – Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu once again uses the disjointed different-people different-places storytelling of Guillermo Arriaga (Writer) and the hugely emotive Music of Gustavo Santaolalla to make the stunning "Babel" (2006). But this is an even more accomplished round-the-world parable that the two that went before.

Ok - the idea that unbeknown to them two Moroccan children could set in motion a chain of events that will affect people in Tokyo, Mexico and the USA is perhaps stretching credibility a tad – but Inarritu wants us to see that we are all connected and that 'pain is universal' whether you’re rich or poor. He also clearly believes that kindness and faith are not merely rationed to the West. In fact people with nothing show more grace than panicking affluent tourists greedy for their own safety do - while one of their own lies bleeding to death in a dust hovel with a bullet in her neck.

But what gives "Babel" its extraordinary humanity and personal punch are the faces you don’t recognize and the worlds you’re allowed to peer in on – often not sexy nor glamorous - but full of family and heart nonetheless. There is an old lady who stays with Cate Blanchett’s Susan as she writhes in pain – her wizened sunken-sockets life-long-struggle face is incredible. Mohamed Akhzam as the desperate father trying to keep his kids from being killed by trigger-happy police as the 'American Killed By Terrorists' storyline filling the news gets out of hand. The speech-challenged teenage girls in Tokyo who just want to be cool and liked but get hurt by the cruelty of giggling boys in Games Arcades. Its amazing around-the-world stuff…

After the grain-filled gritty realism of "21 Grams" on the new format – it’s fabulous to see that "Babel" is a proper looker on BLU RAY and a quantum leap ahead in terms of visuals. Defaulted to 1.85:1 aspect  - it fills the full screen and the effect is powerful. Dust, dirt and goatherds on the one hand with the neon blitz of downtown Tokyo on the other – all looking fabulous. The Audio is in both English and French 5.1 Dolby Digital with Subtitles in English, English for the Hard Of Hearing, French and Spanish. But apart from a Theatrical Trailer and some Previews – a huge disappointment is the complete lack of Extras when this film so cried out for them.

“Babel” broke down doors in terms of showing us the world in all its complex but similar humanity. And while it may not all tie up perfectly at the end (like life) - it was hailed in certain circles as 'a genuine masterpiece'.

I for one would agree wholeheartedly…

“21 Grams” on BLU RAY – A Review Of The 2004 Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Film

"…Forgive Me…"

21 Grams on BLU RAY

Like a freight juggernaut carrying the poisoned cargo of a screwed-up past and a tormenting temptation-filled-present - ex convict Jack Jordan is a train wreck waiting to derail yet again - only this time in spectacular fashion. At the hands of Preacher John (the ever stunning Eddie Marsan) Jack has at least discovered God ("Jesus gave me that truck...") but he seems to be slowly losing everything else - his freedom, his job and his family.

Mexican Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu had made the brilliant "Amos Perres" in 2000 and it went a long way to drawing in huge talent like Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and especially Benicio Del Toro (as Jack Jordan). Not conventionally structured - 2004's "21 Grams" uses the device of back and forward in time flashbacks to offer up a story of accidents and loss and extreme pain and how ordinary people cope with it (or not as the case may be).

The structure is odd and at times grating - but it brilliantly unfolds the story so you slowly twig what's happened and to whom. One minute Jack Jordan is clean-shaven happily waving to his friends by his pick-up - the next he's in a prison shower again with a towel around his neck (and he isn't trying to clear up his zits). Sean Penn's character Paul River's is wheezing on a ventilator while he sneaks a cigarette from a pill bottle stash in the bathroom in one scene - then is healthy and immaculately suited in the next scene as he ogles a woman in a swimming pool (Naomi Watts) he seems overly interested in for a married man. One moment he's raising a glass of wine with his friends celebrating an organ transplant that has literally saved his life - the next Paul is lying in a hospital bed looking battered with tubes in his mouth - ruminating on the size of the bodyweight you lose when you die (the film's title).

In between all of this we keep returning to a father (a brilliantly subtle Danny Huston) on his mobile to his wife. He is clearly not paying enough attention to his two young daughters giddily chasing a bird on the footpath ahead of him. As the three pass out of shot - leaves are blown ahead as a familiar-looking truck races past - and a few moments later (still out of shot) there's an ominous screech of tyres...

While Sean Penn is typically magnetic - the movie belongs to Benicio Del Toro who straddles it like a malevolent colossus. In the 'Making Of' the Director says you need only point the camera at him and magic will happen - worlds going on behind a glance. Yet somehow (and there are repulsive scenes with his family) Del Toro fills his tattooed enraged Jordan with such gravitas that you empathise with his gradual loss of faith rather than judge him. In one scene he begs a startled man to kill him - end his torment - and you don't for a second think that he doesn't really mean it.

But special praise should also go to the women who are simply astounding and in some cases act the showier male names off the frame. Charlotte Gainsbourg plays Sean Penn's wife Mary Rivers obsessed with having a child even if their relationship is disintegrating - while Melissa Leo plays the wife of the God-obsessed Jack Gordon trying to keep him out of jail and her family together (both are simply superb). But it's Naomi Watts who blows you away. There is a scene where she has to go the hospital to check on her husband and two daughters only to be given unfathomable news. As a parent you physically shake and ache with her harrowing disintegration (she's that good). The only other times I've ever seen this sheer acting power is in "Bright Star" about the life of poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne that has Abbie Cornish give the same kind of mind-blowing performance (see review) and Marion Cotillard's unbelievable performance in the Edith Piaf biopic "La Vie En Rose".

With a 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio (the full screen is filled) 'adequate' best describes the BLU RAY picture quality. It isn't great by any stretch of the imagination featuring many indoor and night scenes with an ever-present pallor of grain. Shooting was all about feel and immediacy - and prettily framed suburbia was never going to be part of the equation. But I'd still say that the power of the watch quickly dissipates any qualms on that front. The only subtitle is English for the Hard Of Hearing.

There's also a great "In Fragments" Making Of where the Director gets all the cast and crew to throw red roses in the air at the start of shooting and white roses when they finish. Each of the principal actors get spots and they're praise and love of the work is palatable. Icing on the cake is Gustavo Santaoialla's stunning score of electric and acoustic heavy guitar strums (like a Mexican Ry Cooder). Gustavo also embellished "Babel" and "The Motorcycle Diaries" with the same emotion-tugging power.

Nominated for 2 Oscars and 5 Baftas - "21 Grams" is visceral cinema peopled with a plethora of actors giving 1000% to a script they know is hard-hitting yet somehow real world redemptive. Inarritu would go on to make the equally brilliant "Babel" and the seriously harsh "Biutiful".

In 2014 you can pick up the stunning “21 Grams” for five quid or less on BLU RAY - and that's a skydiver well spent in my book...