THE REVERENCE
Glendyn Ivin
Finally saw The Revenant. What an amazing, amazing achievement. I don't think I've been that blown away by a film since...well since Birdman! (and maybe 21 Grams before that!) Emerging out of the cinema I felt my senses heightened. The air seemed cleaner. The sun warmer. Colours more saturated and peak hour Lygon street seemed almost calm and quiet.
The whole approach to the way that film was realised makes absolute sense to me. It's everything I aspire to as a filmmaker. The hyper realism, the humanity in the performances, the dream like poetry, the light, the immense geography, the extreme adventure of it etc... it's inspired me no end. It reminded me of quote I read recently...
"I would photograph an idea rather than an object, a dream rather than an idea." Man Ray
The whole film feels like a dream... It's not so much the story or the performances that struck me in The Revenant, it's the 'spirit' of the film, the uncompromised dream like cinematic language. It just made sense to me on a purely emotional level. It felt essential, like oxygen.
