Well, the second time is definitely the charm with The Revenant. You just have to get past the shock of the brutality contained in the survival ordeal that Leo goes through. Once you know what’s coming and you’ve digested that and thought it through, the second viewing (which happened tonight at the Hollywood Arclight) results in a serious uptick. I was entranced all through it. Not that I didn’t admire The Revenant the first time, but this time I fell heavily in love with every aspect, every shot, every beat, every performance and definitely the music again…Ryuichi Sakamoto! The Revenant is all about naturalism & what is necessary and inescapable (if ghastly) given what happens to Leo whereas the final third of a film I can’t discuss for a while is, for me, sadistic and sickening — cynical, tongue-in-cheek “style” violence as its very worst. In short, this film inadvertently shined a nice contrasting light on The Revenant. Get past the wounds and the agony and the brutality of nature in the Inarritu and it’s basically sad and aching and soulful and almost serene. I really love it now. My initial concerns about the brutality evaporated tonight, like snow in the spring.