Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"A World Unseen: The Revenant" is a 44minute live action documentary from January 2016, so this one is almost a year old. It was made by Eliot Rausch and features interviews with Leonardo DiCaprio and Alejandro G. Iñárritu and other people somewhat (not so) close to the production of the very successful "The Revenant". The focus here is on many issues, maybe too many to deal with adequately for a film under 45 minutes. One of them would be the discrimination against Native Americans and this is a core component (probably the core component) in the second half of this one. However, I cannot say I am convinced by the outcome here. The film does seem pretentious at times and it also seems to take itself too seriously. There is nothing new we learn from this one. And most of the time it felt like empty phrases to me. Yes these phrases may sure sound important, but they lack the sincerity I think. It's like hearing "we need to change things" five times, but not hearing once what we actually have to change. Somehow it also did not feel so great how the connections between "The Revenant" and this one here were used after all. Yes it is a subject in the Oscar-winning film, but I somehow felt as if the people in here qualified themselves as experts or even scientists on the subject. I think the message this film sends is a good one, but the execution in detail is far from being a quality achievement. I felt it was very contrived and basically all scripted sadly. Not recommended.
