"The Revenant" and the Search for a Higher Justice | Bishop Robert Barron | The Dispatch
Alejandro Iñárritu's new film carries a crucially important message, especially for our secularist time
Alejandro Iñárritu's new film The Revenant is one of the most talked about movies, and for good reason. The opening twenty minutes, which feature a frighteningly realistic Indian attack and a horrifically vivid mauling by a grizzly bear, are absolutely compelling viewing. And the remainder of the film is so involving that this viewer at least felt physically sick as he followed the sufferings of the main character.
The story revolves around a fur trapper from the early 19th century named Hugh Glass (very convincingly played by Leonardo DiCaprio). After being nearly killed by a bear protecting its cubs (in the mauling referenced above), Glass is bandaged up and then carried on a crudely constructed litter through miles and miles of rugged country in the middle of winter. So sick is he and such an encumbrance to his colleagues that many in the party wonder whether it might be better simply to kill him. But Glass's son, a half-white, half-Indian teenager named Hawk, vigorously defends his father. Eventually, however, Fitzgerald, one of the strongest advocates for eliminating Glass, makes his move, murdering Hawk in cold blood and placing Glass in a shallow grave, convinced that the profoundly injured man would never manage to extricate himself.
But in the first of a number of resurrection/re-birth scenes, Glass crawls out of his grave and despite his appalling injuries manages to make his way. What follows is like something out of Dante's Inferno or the book of Job.
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