Environment Throbbing with Life: Postcolonial Ecocriticism and Ecofeminism in the film The Revenant

Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s film, ‘The Revenant’, is not just about conflicts among tribes, betrayal, unyielding perseverance to survive a harsh environment and avenging. A closer look at the film unveils ecocritical connotations. Cinema, a potent medium of cultural representation and communication has been used to address environmental issues. Land stands witness to the conquest and subjugation as DeLoughrey and Handley say and this is where postcolonialism and ecocriticism converge. The exploitation of the natural environment considering it mute and lifeless and utter disregard of the indigenous communities and landscape with an aim of profit maximization in capitalist enterprise recur in The Revenant. This paper will employ the theory of postcolonial ecocriticism to explore these themes in the mentioned film. Ecofeminists like Annette Kolodny draw a parallel between the subjugation of environment and women. Cultural Ecofeminists see the female body as a source of power, nurture and care. These are also the qualities of the environment which also sustains, heals, preserves and is a protagonist in its own right. This paper will look at The Revenant from the lens of ecofeminism to analyze the character of the Native American girl named Powaqa, the protagonist, Hugh Glass's survival in the natural environment and the living and dying of other characters in the film. This argument also looks forward to New Materialism to explore the themes of agency of matter, the interconnectedness of humans, natural environment and the material world in The Revenant. This idea of inseparability also renders Ecofeminism’s target of hierarchical dualism obsolete.