Bone-chilling winds, sheets of ice, ravenous rapids, dizzying heights, and menacing Mother Nature - these ingredients have been used by cineastes to create some of the masterpieces of cinema in the 20th century. We have blinked at Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton hanging from cable cars across ice-covered mountains in Where Eagles Dare (1968) and have yawned at Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris trying to fight the bitter cold of Norway in The Heroes of Telemark (1965). But these were war movies glorifying allied soldiers rather than portraying human interaction with elements of nature.

This task was brilliantly undertaken by Sidney Hayers in his 1966 movie The Trap. When this film was shown in cinemas in Pakistan around mid-1970s, it drew huge crowds and people loved the rugged trapper Oliver Reed and the mute midget Rita Tushingham, whom the viewers had seen in a small role as Omar Sharif’s daughter in David Lean’s Dr Zhivago.

The Trap was an adventure film shot in the wilderness of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The story revolved around a rough trapper and a mute orphan girl. ‘Trapper’ is a term used for a person who uses a trap to catch wild animals; if animals are poached in this manner for their fur, the hunt is called fur-trapping and the hunter, a fur trapper.  The Trap is set in 19^th century Canada where our fur trapper called La Bête (the Beast) buys a mute girl, Eve, to make his wife and takes her against her will into the wilderness of British Columbia. They start a difficult relationship of Eve’s mistrust, fear, and dislike of the trapper. The rough and lonely trapper does not force himself on Eve, and teaches her survival skills but spends the nights alone in his bed. The film takes an interesting turn when the Beast is threatened by a mountain lion and inadvertently gets his foot trapped in his own bear trap. He tries to drag himself back into his hut, but is hunted by famished wolves; his fight with the wolves and his struggle for survival leaves the audience breathless.

As he and the wolves approach his hut, Eve’s newly-learnt skill in shooting drives the wolves away and the injured Beast is brought home with a broken leg. Then Eve embarks on a two-day trip to fetch the medicine man from the next Red Indian village. Her arduous walk in the Canadian winter and over snow-covered hilltops proves futile when she find the village deserted. Returning empty-handed she finds the Beast suffering from septicemia (blood poisoning). The scene in which the terrified girl is forced to use an axe to chop off the poisoned leg of her husband is blood-curdling but entirely believable; unlike some of the shots in the Revenant that we will discuss later.

The next film worth watching about the survival of a trapper in sub-zero temperatures is Robert Redford’s Jeremiah Johnson (1972). One doesn’t recall this movie ever being shown in Pakistani cinemas but a chance purchase of the DVD in Washington DC afforded me an opportunity to enjoy this flick. The movie is mostly set in the Rocky Mountains where a young ex-soldier -- or rather a deserter -- named Jeremiah Johnson, is fleeing civilization. He becomes a solitary mountain man and learns survival skills from a helpful Red Indian man. He tries to keep animals but they die as he moves deeper into the mountains.

He continues through the deep snow on foot, finds a destroyed settlement with dead bodies all around and a mother and child in need. He befriends them and they continue their journey, try to settle in a hut but are ambushed and the woman and child are killed -- Jeremiah survives to endure more of the same.

The film is based mostly on the true story of an army deserter who was tired of fighting wars and fled to the mountains, remaining there for decades till he grew old and died. Jeremiah Johnson is still considered a legend in the Rocky Mountains folklore. The film was expertly directed by Sidney Pollack who later gave us memorable movies such as Tootsie (1982) and Out of Africa (1985), both Oscar-winning movies. His Out of Africa starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep won seven Academy awards.

And now the best of the pack -- Dersu Uzala. It took the great Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa, three years (1972-75) to shoot this Soviet-Japanese co-production in the Russian Far East wilderness. Based on the memoire of Russian explorer, Vladimir Arsenyev (1872-1930), about his exploration of the region over the course of multiple expeditions in the early 20^th century. The film was almost entirely shot outdoors, exploring the theme of a native of the forests who is fully integrated into his environment that will inevitably be destroyed by the advance of civilization.

Led by Dersu, the expedition struggles to survive the frozen Tundra, meets a family that offers them food and warmth -- and when the expedition ends the indebted captain invites Dersu to come with them to the comforts of city life but Dersu is a free soul who hates the city confines. The film is a gem of the Soviet cinema and a marvel of direction by Kurosawa. Perhaps, the best feature of this movie is the rustic love of nature and Dersu’s passionate care for his environs; he tries his best not to kill any animal or destroy natural beauty. His is a world full of beautiful interaction with nature and its forces. The film won the 1976 Oscar for best foreign language film and remains an icon of a bygone era.

In contrast, the recently-released The Revenant leaves you exhausted and nauseated. Despite some extraordinary scenes directed by Inarritu and the absorbing performance by DiCaprio, the film is a drag that you want quickly to finish.

The screenplay contains episodes that are highly unlikely to be real and believable -- for example, the decision to abandon the boat knowing fully well that the Red Indians are following; the captain’s desire to leave his injured team member behind and in the care of an entirely hostile fellow; the unbelievable falls of DiCaprio into hundreds of feet deep gorges and rapids; with festering wounds his ability to survive in icy waters, the film is full of adventures that pale in comparison to the ones in the films mentioned above, especially if you have watched the highly believable tale of survival in Dersu Uzala.