The Revenant: Review and Recommendation

DiCaprio plays a man named Hugh Glass who is on an Alaskan expedition in the 1800's.  The movie begins with a battle scene between White people and a group of Native Americans, who the White people call tree niggers.  The battle forces DiCaprio and those in his group, who are still alive, to retreat from the area and move to another.  During the move, DiCaprio is viciously attacked by a Grizzly Bear impaling him to the point of near death.  DiCaprio is then lugged around by his fellow frontiersmen until the group must climb a mountain and carrying DiCaprio becomes unfeasible.  Three of DiCaprio's fellow frontiersmen, one being his son, volunteer to carry DiCaprio to a separate location until reinforcements arrive with suitable resources for dealing with the injured man.  During the time in which Dicaprio's character is under the watch of his son and the other two frontiersmen, some events unfold (I will not say what for spoilers sake) and DiCaprio is left for dead.

Since I do not want to provide any spoilers, I will merely provide a general summation of what happens next.  DiCaprio's character, after regaining his physical strength from the bear attack and being left for dead, sets out on what can only be described as a willful mission to find one person.  Along the way, DiCaprio faces what seems at times to be insurmountable obstacles such as: surviving the bitter cold Alaskan tundra, starvation, dehydration, attacks by Native Americans, and much more.   The audience is treated to a detailed viewing of one man's ability to survive and persevere with no means of support other than what is provided by the natural environment.  DiCaprio's character must resort to near primitive acts of survival such as eating bone marrow from a rotting carcass, gutting a horse and sleeping in it's body cavity for warmth, and eating live fish and raw buffalo meat.  The struggle for survival from DiCaprio's character is enough to keep anyone on the edge of their seat.

This film is full of action and suspense.  The suspense is mostly derived from not knowing whether DiCaprio's character is going to live from one moment to the next because he has so many harrowing events happen to him.  Moreover, there is quite a bit of gore in this movie which intensifies the elements of suspense.  Although there are plenty of action scenes, the film does have a few scenes that are slow and seemingly drag on longer than they needed to.  However, if you appreciate the scenery and aesthetics of the Alaskan wilderness, then you might not mind the scenes that allow the viewer to take it all in.

I recommend this movie to anyone who has the patience to sit through a detailed telling of one man's struggle and will to survive in the hostile Alaskan wilderness.  It helps if one continuously asked themselves throughout the film what he/she would do in DiCaprio's situation?  While the motivation behind DiCaprio's will to survive is nothing new to storytelling, it does provide the viewer an opportunity to empathize with the main character and know the lengths one will go to in order to achieve goal.  I do not recommend this movie for people who are turned off by intense situations as this film is very detailed and spares the viewer no time to collect themselves emotionally from one scene to the next.  Also, if one is turned off by gore and other violent antics, I do not recommend this movie for that individual.

Let us know what you thought about the movie in the comment section!

The Lost Art of Patience and Its Implications on Film

Watching movies is about as relaxing of an activity that one can engage.  Or is it?  This poses an interesting question.  How should one watch a movie?  If  movie watching is an aesthetic experience, then there are underlying rules for watching a movie.  One should focus their attention on elements of a film such as: how the soundtrack blends with whats happening on the screen or how successful different colors in a scene evoke the appropriate emotional reaction.  These are obvious elements of a film that even the most amateur viewer, such as myself, are able to identify.  A viewer is more likely to recognize these elements if that viewer is paying attention to the movie.  A distracted viewing of a film is surely not going to have the impact on a viewer that an active, even semi-active, viewer will have.  

A subtle yet almost imperative faculty one should possess when watching film, especially one like “It Follows,” is that of patience.  Patience is a lost art in the fast paced, sound bite, and twitter induced nausea culture that has unfolded in the last decade or so.  Afraid of the implications of the loss of patience as a virtue, I began to contemplate those implications on film and viewership.  This contemplation manifested itself during my viewing of “It Follows.”  

This movie, of which I have posted a brief review with no spoilers, is a slow-paced, slow-developing, suspenseful movie that requires a complete level of patience and focus.  There are no explosions, limited gore, no scream queens, and no dumbass decisions made by characters that do not reflect a shred of rationality -- which we are regularly exposed to by Hollywood films.  With the Hollywood status quo as of late, there is no need for patience because everything is intense all of the time.  “It Follows” deviates from the Hollywood formula and actually spends quite a bit of time building suspense. 

During my viewing of "It Follows," I initially suffered from action withdraw.  However, after some brief introspection, I became aware that I had a problem.  I was not being patient and allowing a sufficient amount of time to pass for the movie to develop meaningful suspense and anticipation.  Time is required to develop suspense within a plot which, hopefully, leads to an eventual climax.  A viewer should have a high level of patience and be actively focused on the film in order to allow the film to work on their consciousness.  “It Follows,” is arguably an example of a film that requires this level of patience and focus in order for the story-line to work on the viewers consciousness so that the viewer feels a sense of climax at the appropriate time.  

There are a lot of reviews suggesting that slower-paced films, such as “It Follows,” are poor films because they are boring or not catchy which implies a fault in the film.  However, I argue that while the film may have its faults, it is strongly correlated with a viewership not mentally equipped to watch it.  A viewer who has their reserves of patience and focus tapped before a film like “It Follows” builds even a ounce of suspense has fallen victim to the nausea.  A culture pregnant with people demanding unlimited attention and patience, ironically, have none to give. Unfortunately, this may be leading to a surplus of passive, distracted, inattentive people, which seemingly has implications on how movies develop the element of suspense.

Let me know what you think in the comment section.

It Follows: A Theory of How to Avoid "It"

It Follows: A Theory on How to Avoid "It"

SPOLILER ALERT: If you have not seen the movie, please read this post at your own discretion.

As you know, there’s not a lot of back story on where ‘It’ came from. But we do know a couple of things. ‘It’ comes after you as soon as you have sex with the person “It” is currently following. ‘It’ moves very slowly (you can outrun it), never stops, and can imitate anyone to it’s liking. ‘It’ will kill the person “It” is after and go after the next person down the line. “It” is kind of like a paranormal STD.

‘It’ will always come after you and the only way to temporarily get ‘It’ to stop is to have sex with someone else. Then, I believe that ‘It’ resets itself and starts after the new person. I say resets because it takes a long time for ‘It’ to come after that new person. I think ‘It’ goes back to its origin from where it came and starts from there. This ties into how I think you can survive ‘It’ following you.

If ‘It’ resets itself after you have sex with someone and then comes after the new person, why don’t you just have sex with the previous person you just had sex with?  The main character sleeps with multiple people throughout the movie to get ‘It’ to stop following her. Of course it worked temporary, but knowing what we know, it’s not a permanent fix. At the very end of the movie she sleeps with her best friend and they walk down the sidewalk together knowing that ‘It’ is following one of them.  Just keep sleeping with each other every day and you should be in the clear due to the time "It" takes to reset.  Of course this is assumes "It" resets and returns to its origins after every sexual encounter.  This is a common theory among the people who have seen this movie.  I think it is basically correct given what we know right now about "It."  More information is needed into the actual origins of "It" in order to flesh out my avoidance theory.  I hope a sequel is made addressing issues such as: where "it" came from, what "it" is, or even why sex is the only way to transmit "it." 

Tell me what you think below.