Film “The Revenant”  by Alejandro González Iñárritu is highly acclaimed for its realism combined with almost fantastical landscapes. The film is incredibly beautiful and was shot using natural light and with minimal special effects.

‘’The light is very reduced here in winter, and we are not shooting with any electrical lighting, just natural light. And every single scene is so difficult — emotionally, technically.’’ – said the director.

There is a conflict in the film between the beauty of nature and the ugliness of human relationships. Cruelty and intrigues set against the background of majestic mountains and forests.
The talent of the cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki without a doubt deserved the most prestigious film awards.

The director was obviously influenced by Andrei Tarkovsky and Terrence Malick, who also took a lot from the great Russian director.

Some scenes from the latest movie with Leonardo DiCaprio have copied from the works of the Soviet director. The similarity is evident: people are composed similarly and matching cinematographic techniques are used. The scenes for example where the protagonist is dreaming about ruins of a castle or sees his levitating wife are taken directly from the films of the Russian director. From my point of view these scenes are not completely organic and look like they were taken from a different movie. Iñárritu himself confessed that he admires Tarkovsky, and left a very strong influence on his work.

“The Revenant” is full of metaphors and symbolism. Sometimes the symbolism of Alejandro Iñárritu is very similar to Andrei Tarkovsky.

The film was also clearly influenced by Jack London’s novel ‘’Love for Life’’ and maybe even by the film “Jack London”s Love for Life” made in in the year 2012 in Alaska. The story by Jack London and “The Revenant” have a lot in common. Jack, an Alaska gold rush era miner, is abandoned by his partner and left to make his way through the wilderness alone. Starving and injured, he struggles physically and spiritually, but goes on and on, driven by man’s will to survive. He is crawling across the tundra, and after surviving a wolf attack, he is saved by a group of explorers traveling by ship.

This is a story of survival at its best. London tells the story in great detail, precisely describing  fear, anguish and hunger endured by his protagonists. Like “Love of Life”, “The Revenant” is a story about one person’s strength and persistence in struggle. But the narrative of Jack London is much more compelling than of “The Revenant”, because Alejandro Iñárritu”s film is made into a revenge story, which makes the film predictable. There is also too much unnecessary violence in the film. The motivation of the protagonist is also unclear – if his drive was revenge why did he start to hesitate in the last moment. “Love of Life” is more humane, more natural, because love of life and not revenge is the true essence of being.

The acting of Leonardo Di Caprio is one of the strongest sides of the film and combined together with the unique cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki made the film “The Revenant” a masterpiece of modern cinematography.