Yucatec Mayan with English subtitles
Set in the Mayan jungles of Mexico during the end times of the great Mayan civilization, there's no doubt that Mel Gibson's Apocalypto contains about 15 minutes of shots emphasizing the beautiful and lush scenery of the land. The other two hours and four minutes are filled with the most sadistic, violent and senseless scenes I have ever seen in a movie. Add in the fact that there are no recognizable actors and the dialogue is Yucatec Mayan with English subtitles, it's doubtful Apocalypto will appeal to many moviegoers.
The film begins with a peaceful Mayan tribe buzzing around their small village. There's a small group of men out hunting for food who play a joke of one of the tribesmen who can't seem to impregnate his wife and suffers verbal abuse from his mother-in-law daily. An elder gives him an herbal remedy to use next time. We then see him and his wife screaming in pain as the mother-in-law goes off on a rant and the tribesmen laugh hysterically. It's the last time there's anything remotely humorous in the film.
During the early morning a neighboring tribe of depraved men storm the peaceful village. They torture, rape and viciously massacre the women, take the men hostage, and leave the children to starve or be eaten by animals.
Only one man, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), is quick to hide his pregnant wife and small son in an empty well. The story then becomes about Jaguar Paw, whom his evil abductors are taking to Maya City where he will be a sacrifice to the Gods.
The brutal violence on the journey there is overblown. Gibson intentionally never pulls the camera back when men's chests are ripped open so the natives can eat body parts and the blood spurts everywhere. At this point in the screening I attended several people got up and left, and some around me questioned Gibson's judgment on making this film.
Once the men reach Maya City there are enormous numbers of people every where. Vendors, the homeless, and the desperate make up the throng of thousands that are panicked, hungry and dependent on the Gods. One slave after another is beheaded, in full detail of the camera, and their bloody heads rolled down a long plank as sacrifices to the Gods, then placed on sticks in a field of heads. By now more people in the theater got up and left.
Jaguar Paw and few others escape the beheading when they go on the run. They're corralled by a hoard of natives who taunt them in a field like lions in the coliseum. They brutally attack and kill each one, all in full view of the camera, and then it's Jaguar Paw's turn. He gets severely injured but finds his way out and heads for the jungle where there's more bludgeoning of animals and people. Another group of moviegoers departed the theater at this point, as well as several critics who said they just couldn't take it anymore.
A few shots reverberate back to Jaguar Paw's wife and small son in the well. She's now had her baby, but the rain is fast filling the hole, and soon she and the children will drown. Meanwhile Jaguar Paw is pursued until he can run no more.
There's nothing enjoyable about this totally offensive movie. I really question Gibson's motivation about making it and his audacity to make people who pay good money to be entertained to sit in a theater and watch vicious bloodbaths by worst looking men than in horror films.
In interviews with the New York Times News Service, Walter Little, an anthropologist and expert on Mayan language and culture at the University of New York at Albany, claimed he was disappointed in the film's plot and taken aback by its violence. Robert Carmack, a retired anthropology professor from SUNY, Albany's lauded Mesoamerican program, said, "It's a big mistake – almost a tragedy – that they present this as a Mayan film." Modern-day descendants of the Mayas he said, "would be totally disgusted by this film. It was all invented."
Gibson also drew criticism for his bloody and violent The Passion of the Christ. At least that was based on religious prophecy and his wise decision to finance it himself when the studios wouldn't, paid off to the tune of millions for Gibson. He has attempted to explain his motivation of making Apocalypto on talk shows, somewhat equating the film to what's happening today.
"We discovered that what archeologists and anthropologists believe is that the daunting problems faced by Maya are extraordinarily similar to those faced today by our own civilization, especially when it comes to widespread environmental degradation, excessive consumption and political corruption."
I found no such thing in this film. There wasn't anything to consume but nature and body parts. The environment was never threatened. And the only politics was which member of the tribe would get to feast on the prime body parts. There is no humanity in any part of this movie.
One critic who liked the film used the words savage and beautiful in the same line. That gives me chills, as did the movie even the day after I had seen it. It's disturbing that we get so much violence on TV and in the real news, that a filmmaker would make a conscious effort to create more of it. I was also taken aback to learn that Disney is the studio behind the distribution, but I'm sure I can't understand those decisions.
I was so appalled by this movie my reaction was not to review it. Yet I feel an allegiance to my readers to warn them, and I do understand people can cast a vote as to what kind of films they see on the big screen. Not going to see Apocalypto will voice an opinion loud and clear.
Photo credits: Touchstone Pictures
