The film portrays unimaginable power with physical emotions that seem manipulative. The film transports its viewers to a period when visual art was the core initiative in the filmmaking industry. The Revenant is based on the life of a US fur trader, and the director was Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. The ideology of Inarritu’s auteurism creates the transnational cinematographic work that specifies the history of North America in the 1820s. The film brings the realism of the religious ventures that shaped US history and how people responded to the change throughout the transition (Dwyer-Mculity 97). The religious language of the movie can be imaged through a narrative strategy hence making the story seem like a historical venture to the viewers of the twenty-first century. For instance, the religious language is shown when Hugh Glass is suffocated by John Fitzergerald during the last sacrament. Fitzergerald showed Christian ideologies with constant regularity that any other Christian should have in their daily character.
The Catholic ideologies influence the recurrence of the religious references in the film, and Gonzalez Inarritu’s auteurism interprets them. In Protestant denominations, anointing the sick is a sacrament, but Fitzgerald gave Glass the last sacrament. Equally, Henry wanted Bridger to say the Lord’s Prayer before dying in the film. Saying the Lord’s Prayer is part of the catholic tradition’s last rites, and it is not among the Protestant denominations (Dwyer-Mculity 147). There is a scene where Glass and Hikuc part ways, and Glass imagines having re-encountered his dead son Hawk. The re-encounter is imaged to have happened in a vicinity full of images of the crucified Christ. The imagination is part of the stamp set by Inarritu’s architecture and murals (“Religion and Auteurism in the Revenant – Active History”). This kind of filming synchronizes with the Catholic Church in Dakotas in the 1820s.
When the US was under expansion during Mexican rule, the bordering regions were influenced by Catholicism. The infusion of Catholic teachings in the film is referenced by the revealing nature of the transnational outlook of the film. The Mexican challenge to the historical nature of the US synchronization with the Catholic teachings, more so in the North West, embraces the orientation of the faith (Hanley 102). The film shows the recurrence of Catholicism through Gonzalez Inarritu’s attempt to depict the borderlands space. The expansion of religion in the US was because of Mexico’s confluence. The Revenant is shaped by faith due to the story of revenge throughout the film (Hanley 102). The three fathers seeking revenge are Hugh Glass, Elk Dog, and Hikuc. The three fathers’ revenge spectrum is interwoven by idealism posed by religious interfaith. For instance, Glass meets Hikuc, and when they meet the dead buffalo, Hikuc poses that his family was killed by the Sioux, making his heart bleed, but the creator serves the best revenge.
During the last stances of the film, when Glass attempts to kill Fitzgerald to get revenge, Elk Dog appears and advises Glass that revenge should be in God’s hands. According to Christian teaching, revenge should be left to God, and society’s ideals should be guided by faith (Thornton 14). Denominations specify explicit references to Catholicism, and the contests unfold in the pan-North American culture. The Hollywood movie with a Mexican director shows that American history is partly because of the inducted faith from the Mexican borders (Dwyer-Mculity 127). For example, California was partly ruled by the Mexicans, and it started as a religion-driven denomination. The US narrative in the film runs through figurative speeches and religious language.
Works Cited
“Religion and Auteurism in The Revenant – Active History”.Active History, 2022, Web.
Dwyer-Mculity, Sally. Common Threads. University Of North Carolina PR, 2018.
Hanley, Jane. “Global Ghosts: Latin American Directors’ Transnational Histories”.New Cinemas: Journal Of Contemporary Film, vol 16, no. 2, 2018, pp. 101-113. Intellect, Web.
Thornton, Niamh. “Alejandro González Iñárritu’s melodramatic masculinities.” Studies in Spanish & Latin American Cinemas 18.1 (2021): 57-72.