Apocalypto

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Apocalypto

Apocalypto promotional poster
Directed by Mel Gibson
Produced by Mel Gibson
Bruce Davey
Written by Mel Gibson
Farhad Safina
Starring Rudy Youngblood
Raoul Trujillo
Mayra Sérbulo
Mauricio Amuy Tenorio
Dalia Hernández
Music by James Horner
Cinematography Dean Semler
Distributed by Touchstone Pictures (USA)
Icon Entertainment (non-USA)
Release date(s) December 8, 2006
Language Maya
Budget $40 million
IMDb profile

Apocalypto is a 2006 film directed by Mel Gibson. Set in the Yucatán Peninsula before Spanish contact, it depicts a fictitious view of the decline of the Maya civilization. The film was released on December 8, 2006, and is rated R in the U.S. (18 in the U.K) for sequences of graphic violence and disturbing images. The film has received some positive reviews from film critics,[1][2] but has also been criticised by a number of anthropologists and archaeologists working in the field of Mayanist studies for its depiction of ancient Maya society as little more than unsophisticated "brutal savages", as well as for its evident anachronisms and other historical inaccuracies.[3][4]

Contents

[edit] Background

Mel Gibson filmed Apocalypto mainly in Catemaco and Paso de Ovejas in the Mexican state of Veracruz. Gibson uses the Yukatek Maya language[5] in Apocalypto, in the same way he used Aramaic and Latin for his religious blockbuster The Passion of the Christ. Apocalypto features a cast of unknown actors from Mexico City, the Yucatán, some Native Americans from the United States and Canada, and locals from Los Tuxtlas and Veracruz.

While Gibson is financing the film himself, Disney has signed on to release Apocalypto for a fee in certain markets. The film was slated for an August 4, 2006 release, but Touchstone Pictures delayed the release date to December 8, 2006 due to heavy rains interfering with filming in Mexico. On September 23, 2006, Gibson pre-screened Apocalypto to two predominantly Native American audiences in the US state of Oklahoma, at the Riverwind Casino in Goldsby, owned by the Chickasaw Nation, and at Cameron University in Lawton.[6] He also did a pre-screening in Austin, Texas on September 24 in conjunction with one of the movie's stars, Rudy Youngblood.[7]

[edit] Themes

[edit] Political subtext

The movie is partially intended as a political allegory about civilizations in decline. Said Gibson in September of 2006: "The precursors to a civilization that’s going under are the same, time and time again... What’s human sacrifice if not sending guys off to Iraq for no reason?"[8]

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In a Mesoamerican jungle, a tapir flees for its life from a small band of Native Americans. The protagonist, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), is out hunting with his father, Flint Sky, and other male members of his village. They encounter refugees on the run from something which has "ravaged" their land, but Flint Sky restrains his son from asking questions. The movie follows the hunters as they return to their village, establishes some of the personal relationships there and introduces Jaguar Paw's pregnant wife, Seven, and son, Turtles Run.

Soon the village is attacked by a Maya war party. Jaguar Paw is awakened by a premonition-like dream, and is able to lower his wife and son into a small cave (presumably a chultun, shaped something like a well)[9] to hide them. The war party capture as many villagers alive as they are able to, but sadistically and unnecessarily kill Flint Sky in front of Jaguar Paw, establishing the sadism of some of the attackers and the authority of their leader, Zero Wolf, who saves Jaguar Paw as a captive. Seven and Turtles Run remain left in the cave, but one of the Maya cuts the vine that is hanging down as their means of escape.

The movie occasionally shows the pair in the cave, with scenes of attempted escapes and a display of the known Aztec practice of using ant mandibles to suture wounds (Turtles Run's leg). Seven is able to throw up a rock with a vine over the edge. Her attempt is unsuccessful, and because of her fall back into the cave, she goes into labor.

The captive villagers are taken on a long trek toward the Maya city where they encounter the previously met refugees as prisoners, failing maize crops, poverty, and slaves producing plaster and building edifices. They also encounter a small girl with smallpox, whom the Maya shun, but she prophesies doom will follow the darkness of the sun in day and the man who runs with jaguars. In the city, the female captives are sold as slaves, while the men are painted blue and taken to the top of a step pyramid to have their hearts removed, be decapitated, and have their headless bodies thrown down the front steps of the pyramid, a direct representation of what is known about the most extreme forms of human sacrifice in Aztec culture, including the blue paint. Similar methods were adopted by the Maya as portrayed in the film, including the "safe" letting of blood by a high figure over the pyramid's apex.[1]

Jaguar Paw and most of the male captives are saved from death when total solar eclipse occurs while he is being held on the altar. The captives, now spared as sacrificial victims to the sun god, are taken to an open space by their captors and are allowed to run for their freedom in pairs while the Maya attack them with javelins, arrows, and rocks. Cut Rock, the son of the leader of the warband (Zero Wolf), waits at the end with a stone axe to finish off anyone who survives the gauntlet and acts as a 'finisher'.

Jaguar Paw is able to reach the end, despite being shot with an arrow by the leader, and when his friend gives his life to give him some time, he is able to pull out the arrow and stab Cut Rock in the neck. The young Maya warrior dies in Zero Wolf's arms, who now wants to take revenge on his son's killer. Meanwhile, Jaguar Paw is able to make it into the jungle while the captors are in hot pursuit. While on the run, he hides up in a tree, only to come between a jaguar and her cub. The jaguar chases him, and when one of the pursuers tries to capture the running Jaguar Paw, the jaguar kills the pursuer instead. Some of the members of the warband are noticeably distraught as the eclipse and man running with the jaguar were part of the prophecy from the small girl with smallpox, yet they continue pursuit.

Jaguar Paw seems to recover from his wound, and leads them on a chase throughout the night. The next day, just as the pursuers are getting close, he comes to the top of a giant waterfall and jumps over. After taunting his pursuers from the bottom, their leader forces them to all jump as well (killing some in the process). After nearly being trapped in a mud pit (the cinematic version of quicksand), Jaguar Paw seems to be revitalized and now begins to actively fight back against his pursuers, first by throwing a hornet's nest at them, then finding a poisonous frog to envenom blowgun darts.

It begins to rain and the cave with Seven and Turtles Run begins to fill with water, and they are soon threatened with drowning. Seven climbs onto a rock and holds her son up as the rain accumulates around them. She gives birth underwater while balancing her son on her shoulders.

Jaguar Paw continues to elude his pursuers in the village, although is shot again by an arrow from the warband leader, whom he then tricks into walking into one of the tapir traps established at the beginning of the movie. As the last two of the warband chase the wounded and exhausted Jaguar Paw onto the rainy beach, he is spared by the arrival of Spanish conquistador ships. This fixes the historical period of the movie firmly for the first time as that of the late Post-Classic Maya (the early 16th century), a period of decline from the Classical peak of previous centuries.

The film ends with Jaguar Paw, Seven, Turtles Run, and the new baby heading farther into the jungle to avoid contact with other men, particularly the men from the ships.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Critical reception

</ref> Apocalypto was given "two big thumbs up" by Richard Roeper and guest critic Aisha Tyler on Ebert & Roeper at the movies.[2]

The movie has received positive reviews in The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker and the Washington Post; it was panned by Newsweek, The Village Voice and the Chicago Tribune.

[edit] Historical inaccuracies

The film has, however, been accused of historical inaccuracy, racism and colonialism by some historians, Native Americans, and many in the archaeological community.[3] The film has been accused of fueling a stereotype of native Mesoamericans as bloodthirsty savages with few civilized achievements other than some architecture.[3]

[edit] Mesoamerican history

The inaccuracies begin with the opening credits, which are shown against a backdrop of artwork imitating the style of Maya murals, but prominently figuring a decapitation - something never shown in Maya mural art. On a very basic level, the movie contains a number of items unknown in precolumbian Mesoamerica, such as metal javelin blades. The Maya city inaccurately combines details from different Maya and Mesoamerican cultures widely separated by time and place.[4] For example, temples are in the shape of those of Tikal in the central lowlands classic style while decorated with Puuc style elements of the north west Yucatan centuries later. The mural in the arched walkway includes elements from the Maya codices combined with elements from the Bonampak murals (over 700 years older than the film's setting) and the San Bartolo murals (some 1500 years older than the film's setting)-- as in most civilizations, the styles of Maya art changed dramatically over the centuries. Elements of such non Maya civilizations as those of Teotihuacan and the Aztec are also seen.

Robert Carmack, an anthropology professor from SUNY Albany's renowned Mesoamerican program said "It's a big mistake - almost a tragedy - that they present this as a Maya film."[4] His colleague, Walter Little, agreed: "A lot of people will think this is how it was, unfortunately."[4] Edgar Martin del Campo, also of SUNY Albany, has pointed out additional flaws. He says, for example, that the Mayans had an understanding of astronomy and would not have been in awe of an eclipse as they are depicted in the movie.[4] In fact, this exact plot device was recognized as an inaccurate cliche as early as 1952 by Guatemalan author Augusto Monterroso, who used an ironic reversal of this plot in his story The Eclipse, in which a friar who tries to use this gambit is sacrificed as the priest calmly reads "one by one, the unending dates in which there would be solar and lunar eclipses, which the Maya astronomers had predicted and noted in their codices without the invaluable help of Aristotle." Nor would the Maya been "dumbstruck" by the sight of a city.[4] As an agricultural people, they also would not have allowed fields of rotting corpses near their crops.[4] Zachary Hruby, of UC Riverside, lamented the use of the Yucatec Maya language, as it gives a sense of authenticity to a film that he says has taken many unfortunate liberties with the subject. Specifically these liberties include: the style and scale of the sacrifices, the presentation of the Maya villagers as isolated people living off the wild forest, the chronological compression of the more urbanized Terminal Classic Maya and the primarily village-dwelling Late Postclassic Maya.[10]


[edit] Cast

Actor Role
Rudy Youngblood Jaguar Paw
Raoul Trujillo Zero Wolf
Dalia Hernández Seven
Morris Birdyellowhead Flint Sky
Israel Contreras Smoke Frog
Mayra Sérbulo young woman
Mauricio Amuy Tenorio Maya Chief
Miguel Angel Galvan Maya Priest
Gerardo Taracena Middle Eye
Rodolfo Palacios Snake Ink
Iazua Larios Sky Flower
Joaquín Cosío

[edit] Trivia

Mel Gibson's cameo in the teaser trailer
Enlarge
Mel Gibson's cameo in the teaser trailer
  • Working titles for this film include Destructo and Armaggedo [2]
  • The title Apocalypto is a Greek verb (αποκαλύπτω) meaning "I reveal" [11]. The word "Apocalypse," Greek "Αποκάλυψις," which means "Revelation," is derived from this Greek verb, but the movie is not overtly religiously themed or connected to the biblical Apocalypse.
  • Although Mel Gibson does not star in the film, he does have a one-frame cameo (pictured to the right) about 1 minutes, 46 seconds or about 2/3 into the first teaser trailer. His appearance is just before the screaming monkey is shown. [3] [4]
  • A crucial scene of the film is reminiscent of an episode of in Columbus's fourth voyage. This scene has become something of a cliche, appearing for instance in a short story by Augusto Monterroso and also in an episode of The Adventures of Tintin called Prisoners of the Sun, also adapted to the screen under the name Tintin and the Temple of the Sun. (As noted above, Monterroso refutes the cliche, pointing out that the Maya had advanced astronomy and would not have been frightened by an eclipse).[5]
  • A solar eclipse in a key scene is followed by a full moon on what appears to be the next evening, an astronomical impossibility.
  • The leader of the warband Zero Wolf yells "I'm walking here" when a tree almost falls on his group who are making their way to the Temple. This is a parody of Dustin Hoffman's famous line in Midnight Cowboy.
  • The film opens with a quotation from historian Will Durant.
  • Like Gibson's previous film, The Passion of the Christ the movie has no opening credits, and begins with a quote. The title is only seen during the end credits.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^
  2. ^ a b Ebert & Roeper at the Movies air date 2006-12-10
  3. ^ a b c "Gibson film angers Mayan groups", BBC, 8 December 2006
  4. ^ a b c d e f g McGuire, Mark. "'Apocalypto' a pack of inaccuracies", San Diego Union Tribune, 12 December 2006. Retrieved on 2006-12-12.
  5. ^ Actors spoke Yucatec Maya language, BProphets-Apoc
  6. ^ "Gibson takes 'Apocalypto' to Oklahoma", Associated Press, 2006-09-23. Retrieved on 2006-09-24. (in English)
  7. ^ "Mel campaigns for new movie, against war in Iraq", Reuters, 2006-09-24. Retrieved on 2006-09-25. (in English)
  8. ^ "Mel Gibson criticizes Iraq war at film fest - Troubled filmmaker draws parallels to collapsing Mayan civilization", Associated Press, September 25, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-12-12.
  9. ^ Chultuns are underground cavities with a typically narrow opening, which the Maya either excavated in toto or enlarged from a natural depression, which were used chiefly for water storage, but also for the storage of other goods and even burials.
  10. ^ Hruby, Zachary. "Apocalypto: A New Begining or a Step Backwards", Mesoweb News & Reports, 08 December 2006. Retrieved on 2006-12-12.
  11. ^ Greek meaning of Apocalypto, BProphets-Apoc

[edit] External links

[edit] Reviews


Films directed by Mel Gibson
The Man Without a Face • Braveheart • The Passion of the Christ • Apocalypto
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