Apocalypto

[roo_ster]

Yeah, I'm a few years behind the curve with regard to cinema. 

Also, does a 3YO movie really need "spoiler alerts?"  Well, consider yourself alerted.


Weird
Apocalypto came out in 2006 and is a Mel Gibson baby.  It made pretty good money for him, though not as much as The Passion of the Christ.

I read elsewhere that this was a "deeply weird movie."  Weird in that all the dialog is in Mayan and all the characters are played by American indians of some sort.  I can't dispute those facts, because they are true.  The slice of the audience able to follow the dialog without aid of the subtitles is minuscule.  I can't see too many showings of Apocalypto in the jungles of the Yucatan.

Plot
The basic plot revolves around a hunter in the jungle named Jaguar Paw. His village is attacked and the adults not killed are taken into captivity, while the young are killed or left to starve.  JP manages to hide his pregnant wife & child in a pit, but she has no way out.  The rest of the movie revolves around JP escaping and rescuing his wife & child.  In essence, it is a chase movie stripped of most human artifice and is CGI-free.

JP & his village have been captured by the better-organized Mayan tribes that managed to build the stone pyramids in Central America.  They have a specific warrior class that specializes in finding captives to sacrifice to their blood-thirsty gods.  The men are prepared for sacrifice and several have their hearts cut out by the priests until a solar eclipse is seen as a sign that the gods have been appeased.

JP & the remainder yet to be sacrificed are then "disposed" of.  IOW, they are to be killed for the pleasure of their captors.  JP escapes while they are toying with him and he manages to kill the son of the warrior band's leader, causing the band to chase him back toward his wife & child.

Indian Culture
Apocalypto is one of the very few films to take indian culture and activity seriously (Black Robe is another).  Most times, it is glossed over and idealized.  Well, Apocalypto illustrates just how the "advanced" civilizations of the Mayas & Aztecs would look, as well as the small hunter-gatherer bands that would surround it.  The technology is Stone Age.  Relations between differing peoples is brutal and very dog-eat-dog.  There is no Western assumption/foundation of human rights or dignity.  Human kindness might be felt & practiced toward you & yours, but there is no moral problem with exploiting the "other" in every conceivable way.

There is no question in my mind that the Spanish who came upon the images and evidence of meso-american human sacrifice & other vile practices thought they were witnessing the work of Satan and the evil Old Testament gods.  The practices were close enough to those of the Canaanites in honor of their Baalim that any literate conquistadors could easily feel justified in going after the Aztecs & Mayans the same way the Israelites went after the Canaanites.

Destruction, Revelation, Beginnings
"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."----Will Durant

There end up being several "apocalypses" in Apocalypto, only two of which are explicit: the quick one of JP's village and the slower one of Mayan civilization.  One other that is implied is the Spanish discovery of the land and the subsequent conquest. 

The Durant quote is directly applicable to the Mayan civilization, as it pretty much destroyed the local jungle to produce the lime to build their pyramids.  It was a thoroughly decadent civilization just waiting to be knocked off.

The flip side of the destruction side of apocalypse is the idea of the new beginning.  The end of Mayan civilization is the soil in which a new civilization grows in the New World.

[SADShooter]

All valid observations with which I generally agree. We have the DVD, and my wife admires the film greatly. The overarching point for me, though, is that Mel Gibson made a well-crafted film set in a virtually alien cultural milieu, which, philosophy aside, is a fundamentally human tale and entertaining at the same time. So a wacky, bigoted sot can make films with as much or more substance and artistry than those of the politically correct, elitist glitterati of Hollyweird. Just sayin'.

[Jamisjockey]

I don't mind blood, gore or violence.  But I think Mel is sliding off into insanoville.  Sad, because otherwise I thought it was a brilliant movie. 

[roo_ster]

I don't mind blood, gore or violence.  But I think Mel is sliding off into insanoville.  Sad, because otherwise I thought it was a brilliant movie. 

I think Gibson is doing no more or less (personal) wackiness than he has in years past.  Also, his wackiness is not noteworthy relative to other big wigs in Hollywierd.

Gibson, since the filming of PoC, has been under the microscope and object of vilification of those in Hollywierd and will not have his dirt swept under the rug by a complaisant Hollywierd press anymore.

Perhaps this means Gibson was always slightly nutty.  I wouldn't be surprised, considering the thespians I knew in high school were usually a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

I think Apocalypto & PoC were "weird" movies in that they used languages the audience required subtitles to understand.  But, there are two points about them & Gibson that ought to be noted:

1. PoC made a HUGE amount of money.  Apocalypto also made a lot of money.  Because Hollywierd wanted nothing to do with PoC or Gibson after PoC, Gibson financed & produced them his own self and pocketed all the profits.  Gibson likely made more $$$ with PoC than he did all the rest of his career combined.  Crazy?  Maybe.  Profitable?  Oh, yeah...

2. The foreign market is as big (combined) as the US market to film makers.  Many of them are going to have to have subtitles, too, if they want to understand the dialog.  This is one reason CGI & action-packed dialog-poor movies get green-lighted.  Car wrecks, chases, and violence need no translation.  Also, Gibson's two linguistically-challenged films were very heavy on the visuals and the plot could have been discerned had there been no subtitles or comprehensible dialog.

[brimic]

From my understanding on the history of the Mayans is that they were a very advanced culture- well beyond any other culture in the realms of mathematics and astronomy but began to decline around 900 AD due to incursions from other more savage cultures from central Mexico: namely Aztec/Toltec tribes who invaded the Mayan civilizations in the Yucatan and central America. The Mayans absorbed the ways of the northern civilizations which emphasized human sacrifice. By the time the Spaniards came, the Mayans were well into their decline.

Great movie, its one of the few DVDs that I've actually bought.

[drewtam]

I enjoyed the movie for its simplicity and honesty as well. It neither denigrated the civilization nor white washed it. Rather, the history was a backdrop to the real story. The incoming Spanish are neither heroes nor villains, they are just another empire on the rise.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

It was an interesting movie. It wasn't the same old boring recycled Hollywood crap every other movie seems to be.  And it was entertaining.

I also like that they didn't pull that PC crap where they try to whitewash the cruel realities of uncivilized indigenous races.

[agricola]

I agree it is probably the best recent Gibson film, though giving his history that is not saying much and I would be lying if I did not state that for the first part of the film I expected the "bad" Indians to speak with a British accent. 

[roo_ster]

I agree it is probably the best recent Gibson film, though giving his history that is not saying much and I would be lying if I did not state that for the first part of the film I expected the "bad" Indians to speak with a British accent. 

Heh.

Yeah, Mel has it in for the Limeys, don't he? 

I wonder where he got it, what with being born in the USA & raised in the USA & Australia?  Outside of Irish enclaves, there isn't much Anglo-resentment in the 'States.

<digs around>

Oh, he is of Irish descent.  "Pass the Noraid cup."

[Physics]

Weird.  I'm taking an intermission from watching it right now.

Edit now that it's over:  This is the second time I've seen it and I like it well enough.  I think that the subtitles add to the effect and like them because of that.  

As to the brutality, I guess I just don't see a way to make a movie about Mayan/indigenous culture in that time/place without that framework.  I'm sure movies have been made without it but really, those were brutal times.  

That is one big thing I got out of ancient Greek history (and now that I'm starting on Roman history, that too): if you pissed somebody off, they were going to freaking kill you.  Usually in the most brutal way they could.  Of course, revenge begins to come into play at that point and you were likely to be killed by the family of your enemy, but I digress.

This soft human rights type of view doesn't really seem to have come about until recently.  Even in the late 18th century, brutality was not unheard of by a long shot (French Revolution anyone?)  I could even go so far as to say it is an American invention.  I want to say that the industrial revolution changed everything in this respect but I don't know my history well enough to back that statement up.  Of course even today, brutality is commonplace in certain cultures.  

[Jocassee]

Gibson didn't direct it, but one of his first movies, Gallipoli, is not kind to the Brits either.

I highly recommend that movie. It manages to be a sad war story without being anti-war.

[Stand_watie]

I agree it is probably the best recent Gibson film, though giving his history that is not saying much and I would be lying if I did not state that for the first part of the film I expected the "bad" Indians to speak with a British accent. 

     Yeah, ol Mel has done some serious villifying of England/Britain in his work hasn't he?

[MechAg94]

That is one big thing I got out of ancient Greek history (and now that I'm starting on Roman history, that too): if you pissed somebody off, they were going to freaking kill you.  Usually in the most brutal way they could.  Of course, revenge begins to come into play at that point and you were likely to be killed by the family of your enemy, but I digress.

This soft human rights type of view doesn't really seem to have come about until recently.  Even in the late 18th century, brutality was not unheard of by a long shot (French Revolution anyone?)  I could even go so far as to say it is an American invention.  I want to say that the industrial revolution changed everything in this respect but I don't know my history well enough to back that statement up.  Of course even today, brutality is commonplace in certain cultures.  

I agree with that sentiment.  In my light reading of military history, it is pretty obvious that until recently, no one really cared about human rights.  Ruthlessness was a norm and very much expected.  We aren't even all that far separated from times when armies would devastate a countryside as they passed through due to lack of logistics.  Even when colonial powers had high ideals, they often as not looked down on "savages" as inferiors. 

IMO, it is a combination of technology and prosperity that allow us to hold on to the human rights values we have.  Repeating firearms, food production and preservation on one hand.  On the other, we have prosperity that allows people to live without ever really witnessing or living with hardship and suffering that greatly affects our thinking.

[HankB]

Apocalypto is one the few subtitled movies I can truthfully say I liked; it wouldn't make my Top 10 list of favorite movies - heck, not even my Top 20 - but it was pretty good.

And a welcome relief from the "Noble American Indian" mythology that Hollywood has fallen in love with; it showed good and evil, with plenty of shades of gray in between . . . in other word, the Mayans were portrayed as people, not some idealized stereotype.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

IMO, it is a combination of technology and prosperity that allow us to hold on to the human rights values we have.  Repeating firearms, food production and preservation on one hand.  On the other, we have prosperity that allows people to live without ever really witnessing or living with hardship and suffering that greatly affects our thinking.

Prosperity indeed.  Ya need to be able to reliably feed yourself and your family before you can spare any effort to ensure that your neighbors are well-treated.  It takes a goodly amount of resources to create and protect a civil society.  Unless a society has those resources to spare it won't be able to implement anything like the civil society we have here and now.

[agricola]

Prosperity indeed.  Ya need to be able to reliably feed yourself and your family before you can spare any effort to ensure that your neighbors are well-treated.  It takes a goodly amount of resources to create and protect a civil society.  Unless a society has those resources to spare it won't be able to implement anything like the civil society we have here and now.

I think its more that we in the West havent had a serious war for a long time.  If one looks at WW2 for instance, the general population (especially in the UK) was far more civil (despite being poorer) than we are now, and yet when faced with what Germany was doing they were able to justify nearly anything to stop them (and of course they were right to do so).

[Stand_watie]

I think its more that we in the West havent had a serious war for a long time.  If one looks at WW2 for instance, the general population (especially in the UK) was far more civil (despite being poorer) than we are now...

     I agree with your statement and think it applies to the U.S. as well. That said, those on the left would say we were less civil in the ww2 era because we had fewer and less generous government welfare programs (as opposed to private welfare).

[Perd Hapley]

Apocalypto is one the few subtitled movies I can truthfully say I liked;

Yojimbo.

[Strings]

I'd say 'twas one of the better movies I've read...

[SADShooter]

Sanjuro. (For our British chum agricola)

edited for specificity

[Cromlech]

I liked the film. It was something a little bit different.

[HankB]

Yojimbo.

That's one I was thinking of, as well as Seven Samurai.

[Chuck Dye]

I did not see Apocalypto until it appeared in the local library and could be watched, more or less, without further enriching Gibson.  Watchable, 'though that mechanical Mama Pantera was a serious clinker, it left me wondering what rationale Gibson will cobble up for his next snuff film.

[Perd Hapley]

Why do you say he makes "snuff films"?  Are you saying his movies involve too much bloodshed? 

If so, how do his films differ from any other violent films, and why does he need a "rationale"?  No one else in Hollywood seems to feel the need for such.

[zahc]

I think he means the violence is too plainly presented. You are supposed to make the violence all stylized, so that it's more entertaining. Then it's ok.