Apocalypto- A Civilization falls
/** Spoiler Alerts in the review, because certain key plot elements can’t be overlooked.
Along with the Aztecs and Incas, the Mayans were one of the greatest civilizations in Latin America, before being conquered by the Spanish. One of the world’s most advanced civilizations, they made significant contributions to architecture, astronomy, mathematics. However they also had a darker side, of their barbaric practice of human sacrifice, which was also practiced by the Aztecs. After dealing with Scottish heroes and the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, Mel Gibson this time, take a look at the final stages of the Mayan civilization, and their human sacrifice, to keep their kingdom alive in Apocalypto.
From the highlands of Scotland, and Jerusalem, Gibson this ime takes us into the deep jungles of Central America. The movie starts off with tribesmen hunting a tapir( one of the best opening scenes) and killing it. After the hunt, the hero Jaguar Paw( Rudy Youngblood) and his father Flint Sky( Morris Birdyellowhead), encounter some refugees who have been driven out from their lands and ask for Sky’s permission to pass through the jungle. On return to the village, Flint Sky tells his son, that he had seen fear in their eyes, and tells him never to let fear overtake him.
Jaguar is leading a happy, contented life in the village, with his pregnant wife Seven( Dalia Hernandez) and their son Turtles Run. However one morning raiders attack the village and set the huts ablaze. Jaguar Paw manages to hide his wife and son, in a small cave like well, lowering them into it. But he is captured along with the rest of the village folk and subdued. The attackers led by Zero Wolf( Raul Trojillo) and the vicious Middle Eye( Gerardo Taracena), capture the villagers for human sacrifice. Flint Sky is killed in front of his son by Middle Eye, as a revenge for Jaguar Paw attacking him earlier.
The raiders and the prisoners undertake a long and ardous trek to the Mayan city, where the women are sold as slaves, while the men are sacrificed one by one in a gruesome manner. Jaguar Paw however is saved by the timely appearance of a solar eclipse, and the priest declaring that the Sun God Kulkulan is appeased by the sacrifices, and orders the remaining prisoners to be released. However Jaguar finds that its even a worse fate, as Zero Wolf marches the prisoners into an open ground, and they are asked to run, as the other raiders start to have shooting practice at them.
Jaguar Paw who survives an arrow shot into his belly, manages to escape, after killing Zero Wolf’s sun Cut Rock. Zero Wolf and his raiders furious at this, pursue Jaguar Paw into the jungle, and soon, he finds himself in familiar territory. The rest of the movie is about how Jaguar Paw manages to kill his tormentors, using his wits and skill, and finally able to rescue his wife and son located in the cave.
Restraint is not something one would associate Gibson with, be it on screen or even off screen. Apocalypto is a movie that is totally in your face, as Gibson does not hold back anything. Considering Gibson’s earlier movies Braveheart and Passion of Christ, the violence and gore here is very high. This is not a movie for people who are faint hearted, and definitely not for kids. Even as an adult, used to watching the violent stuff, i had to flinch away from certain scenes.
The scene where the prisoners are offered for human sacrifice is one of the most gory ones. Beating hearts are plucked out, heads roll down the steps of the pyramid like bouncing balls. Blood flows freely, my certainly not for the squeamish.
The tapir hunt scene is of the best opening scenes in a movie. But again the part, where one of the younger men is asked to eat its entrails to prove his manhood is quite flinching.
What is really scary however is that this violence is real. There is a difference between what you see in Kill Bill and what you see here. The violence in Kill Bill is of a cartoonish, video game kind, it kinda thrills you, but does not scare you. But what you see in Apocalypto is frightening, because this was real, it did happen some time back in history. As you see the tribals, being forced to take the ardous trek, across the jungle, you flinch, because this is real.
The movie also takes a look at both the Mayan civilization and the tribal lives. The scene where the priest and the king, use their knowledge of the solar eclipse, indeed points to the knowledge of astronomy. Yet the fact that they use this knowledge to exercise power over the lives of the masses, points to how a small, corrupt elite held sway over so many people. The movie starts off with a quote by Will Durant.
A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.
Were the Mayans conquered by the Spanish? Or did their corrupt ways, their human sacrifices contribute to their own downfall?
Also in some ways, the Mayan’s practices seem eerily similar to what the Nazis followed later. The scene where the prisoners are made to run on the ground, while the raiders practice shooting on them, reminded me of the Schindlers List scene. As also the discovery of mass graves by Jaguar Paw. Were the Nazis inspired by the Mayans?
The movie also centers around the human bonding and the tribal society. Most of Gibson’s movies had a strong family angle, in Braveheart he goes to war when his beloved is killed, in The Patriot he turns against the British, when his son is killed. Here too the hero fights for his wife and son. His objective is to save them and be back with them. Even in the beginning we have the hero’s father telling him never to be afraid, as fear is the biggest enemy. When Jaguar looks away, as his father’s throat is about to be slit, he commands him not to be afraid, and look at him straight. While we are fascinated with Jaguar Paw’s flight through the jungle, the fight to survive by his wife and her son is equally rivetting.
For action lovers, there are enough scenes especially in second half to keep the adrenaline flowing, especially Jaguar Paw’s spectacular jump from a waterfall. Also the way Jaguar Paw kills Zero Wolf, using a trap is spine chilling.
The detailing, the settings, the photography, the characters, the atmosphere is just brilliant. The way Gibson made his characters in Passion of the Christ speak Aramaic, here in Apocalypto, he totally uses Yucatec Maya language, and that lends authenticity to the movie. And its not just the language, its also in the casting, instead of going for regular stars, what Gibson has done here is cast not too well known actors, but most of them of Native American lineage. This gives a highly credible authenticity to the movie, and unlike other embarassing epics like Oliver Stone’s Alexander, here we actually feel we are watching a real account of Indian tribes.
Consider that previous Hollywood epics had well known actors, playing Native Americans in wigs, with make up, and speaking in a thick accent, Gibson’s Apocalypto, would rank along with Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves, as one of the most accurate epic movies dealing with native Americans. The tattos, the nose piercings, the teeth plating, as also the costumes worn by the Mayan people, their head priest and their king, are pretty much accurate. And the pyramids, the murals, the arches are absolutely life like. Watching Apocalypto is akin to takinga time travel back into that era. In fact so authentic is the recreation, that one can actually feel the atmosphere of that era.
Even by Hollywood standards, the cinematography for Apocalypto is nothing short of breath taking. Shot on real locations in Mexico, Dean Semler, the cinematographer, gives us beautiful shots of the jungle, the pyramids, the Mayan cities.
The movie suffered from negative publicity on account of Mel Gibson’s arrest for drunken driving, and his anti Semitic utterings. But still it was a commercial success. Though off the screen Gibson gets into all kinds of trouble, with his retarded antics like our Sallu Bhai, on screen, he does manage to create some great movies. I would still recommend Apocalypto for a watch, thanks to its epic scale, its authenticity, its narration. But be warned, the violence, the gore and the in your face narration might put off some people.
Tags: Central America, Epic movies, Mayan Civilization, Mel Gibson
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
just saw it on Star movies..did u too???…but i missed the end part…one more scene i thought was brilliant was when Jaguar’s wife gives birth to the baby….had read somewhere dat underwater delivery is less painful…and as long as the umblical cord is joint the baby won’t drown…i don’t know whether it was intentional or not but it worked for mw big time…
Rasik, thanks for that insight, well that was a chiller scene. In fact Apocalypto had two parallel threads, one was Jaguar’s attempts to race back and rescue his wife and son, and other was their attempts to survive. Actually i think the script cud make for a good masala flick.
@Ratnakar
nice work friend. you brought back memories of one of my favorite movie. it was definitely amongst the best movie of 2006. i didnt know what to expect from this movie when i watched it back then. i had no idea who the actors were. had just read about it on the internet. but as the movie unfolded, i was totally sucked into the narrative. even without the english subtitles, the movie works big time. there were many a scenes where the goings-on on the screen are so powerful, you actually forget to read the subtitles.
@ Amit
Well i do like Mel Gibson’s movies, whatever be his antics off screen. I wanted to watch this movie in theater, but missed it out. Luckily was able to see it, but this is a kind of movie which can be enjoyed only on the big screen. The action scenes are just brilliant. It seems to film that famous scene, where Jaguar Paw jumps over the waterfall, he had used a special Spydercam camera.
did you by any chance saw it yest on star movies?
Sunny, Yes saw it on Star Movies, missed it in theater. And stayed all night watching it.
one of my fav movies ,die hard fan of Mel Gibson…
Vineet, i am not a big fan of Mel Gibson, but do like most of his movies, especially those directed by him.
Ah!I guess many others have seen it on Star Movies last night like me.A brilliant movie- for it keeps you engrossed for the entie duration of the movie.The action is so raw, the pace so quick- ita riveting watch.I found 10000 B.C to be a very stupid attempt of repeating something similar.
@ Sethu, yeah me too caught it on Star Movies. Missed it in theater. But this kinda movie can really be enjoyed on the big screen only. 10000 BC was crap.
accodring to Mayan’s calnedar come year 2012 we all will enetr new age
which is called satyug or golden age
and honstely we all needsome kind of miracle because world is hell right now
also Mayan’s weren’t captured by spanish army
with the help of aliens they moved to another stars system and now they are the advance civilization in another galaxies
@ Movie Fan
Are u serious about the Mayans being tranpsorted to space theory??? Dont remember reading it anywhere??
@Ratnakar…
Cmon man you have to add Spoiler Alert to your post…you gave away the entire movie and some more…????
what was this a review…or a retelling of the story…!!!
@ Trimoneo
Spoiler alerts are necessary if i give away the twists or the endings in the story. Apocalypto is a straight forward tale, with no twists or surprise endings. Also i have concentrated mostly on other parts like the Mayan background, the technical aspects, the detailing.
I woud really appreciate it if you can read the review properly, and actually understand what a spoiler alert is.
^^^ dude movie is 3 years old
@ Movie Fan-9,
For whom was that comment intended??
@Ratnakar
haha I meant to say that I was a big fan ,english language lafda..
very masala, very hollywood, yet, a good watch. But I heard its authenticity is questioned a lot as the ritual sacrifice was part of Aztec culture and not the Mayans.
RoodRow, yes the story would fit into any Indian masala flick, now just looking for some movie maker who would do it.
Also while the Aztecs were noted for human sacrifice, the Mayan civilization was famous for it, though not on such a large scale as Aztecs.
But the distortion in movie is that the sacrifice depicted is to please the Sun God, while Mayans generally indulge in it to please the God of Water, and that too they did at water wells. The practice of sacrificing humans on pyramids is more related to Aztecs.
Also anthropologists objected to the scenes where prisoners are made target practice, and the open graves filled with bodies.
Later i guess at Calif State Univ, Northridge in 2007, there was this fracas between Gibson and Alicia Estrada, a professor.
He was having a Q & A session with students, and she objected to his movie calling it “racist” and “ignorant”. And it ended up in a major controversy.
Dunno what it is about Mel Gibson, like our Sallu Bhai, he seems to end up in all kinda messy things, LOL.
But Mel Gibson’s historical inaccuracies or whatever are not embarrassing and cringe worthy the way Spielberg showed Indians in Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom, that was pathetic. As also Oliver Stone’s depiction of Indians as savages in Alexander, damn, did he not take the trouble to read Megasthenes Indica, which describes India as one of the most advanced civilizations during time of Alexanders invasion.
Oliver Stone has little regard for history and authenticity if it does not involve USA. Remember Midnight Express? a good action movie but I never saw a film with such a brazen, unapologetic racist tone.
BTW i believe even Stone’s JFK, Nixon, were criticized for their historical inaccuracies. JFK was slammed as “Dances with Facts” an oblique reference to the Kevin Costner starrer.
bingo. nice watch
this film as you put it was accurate as well as aesthetic. it wasnt not like dressed up.
subtitles were jus an addition. the body lang was doing the job. the child bearing scene was fab too.
worth a stay awake
cheers.
Just caught the movie in dvd yesterday and a coincidence that it was played in star movies too..The movie was awesome..I loved the Cinematography..it was top notch…had breath taking visuals..The scene where jaguar paw kills Middle eye and the scene invovlving the real jaguar was mind blowing…
The scene where jaguar paw jumps of the cliff into the waterfalls…reminded me of a very similar shot in the Marudanayagam triailer
Ratnakar – Vey well written. Two more scenes that are outstanding is when the child infected with a disease, curses the Zero Wulf gang. The other scene is after the dive into the waterfall, Jaguar Paw shouts at Zero Wulf that the jungle belongs to him and he is the hunter there!! Awesome!
BTW, who wrote the screenplay? Salim-Javed?
Anand, the screenplay was written by Gibson himself and Farhad Safinia, an Iranian movie producer and screen writer. Yeah but the story is like a typical Indian masala movie, hero searching for wife and son, could make for a great movie in Indian languages also.
That waterfall dive scene was shot using a special Sypdercam camera, which was suspended over the waterfall. Also Gibson, used real time locations, instead of CGI, which is what makes the action scenes authentic.
My only grouse with this review is like someone else mentioned, ‘Spoilers’. ‘coz if someone like me is watching a movie, I wouldn’t want to know who’s father gets killed, by whom, what happens to the captives, how someone escapes a sacrifice, what the bigger dread is for the sacrifice-escaper, who’s son gets killed, where the hero takes the bad guys while escaping and what plan he makes afterwards. I know it is not a suspense thriller or anything, but still it spoils the movie watching experience. And come on, you spent three whole paragraphs on this. Accept it.
And @MovieFan, yeah the movie is three years old. But still that doesn’t really justify giving away the story. Even a 50 year old movie is as good as the latest release if you are watching it for the first time.
check the link,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ya6XtogFP0&feature=related
somehow feel if this movie had been made it could have been Indias Apocalypto
a better quality video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exuLF7RQmr4&feature=related
Balaji, the visuals were fucking awesome. Well only Kamal can pull off such audacity. He actually wanted to make Marudhanayagam, as an Indian version of Braveheart, but the failure of Hey Ram, made him shelve this project. If an Apocalypto kinda movie were to be made in India, Kamal wud be the right person to pull it off, he can get the detailing, the visualization, the action scenes perfectly right.
Unfortunately history seems to be something that has always let down Kamal. With the debacle of Hey Ram, shelving of Marudhanayagam, now the shelving of Marmayogi looks like he is not finding any luck at all.
Also the fact that historical movies or costume dramas, do not have a big appeal in India. Even Jodha Akbar, was not as big a hit as expected.
Balaji,Ratnakar-
Yeah Kamal is the right man to do historicals or a movie like Apocalypto.He is someone who is somehow not just having luck when it comes to making the movies he wants to.The latest news is that even his plan to remake with A Wednesday (earlier with himself & Mammooty and later on with Mohanalal) doesnt seem to be working out.Hoping to hear confirmation from him soon about his next project.
@sethu
There has been so much rumours about his next project..Marmayogi, thalaivan irukiran, wednesday remake, 39 steps with walt disney, a comedy in hindi..the list goes on…no word from the man himself..and with respect to wednesday..i am not sure how well it will work down south..how much will the people relate to it..and what will be city that will be chosen as a back drop…Chennai seems so out of place for the theme…??
@ Balaji
Yes the rumours are many- 19th Step with Asin,Thalaivan Irukiran, a project with Jackie Chan, another one with Mohanlal,A Wednesday remake etc.Thats why I said I’m looking forward to a confirmation from Kamal himself about his next project/s. Yes A Wednesday might look difficult to place in Chennai- but it makes sense to have it based in Coimbatore or Hyderabad going by what’s happened in these cities.
Yes 19th step..my bad…..watching lots of hitchcock lately..
. Hopefully we will hear some confirmation soon. Just in case you are intersted, India today Tamil edition has come with a special edition on Kamal hassan, which has numerous articles by famous writers and few actors from the industry, quiet a good read..
Balaji-Yeah I’m aware of the India Today KH special edition.Should try getting my hands on it soon.The whole KH community in Orkut has been going gaga over the same
Im one among them
..just went through a friends copy and looked nice..havent had a detailed read..will be getting a copy from a friend in chennai..as it not available here in bangalore..
I have to disagree with you on this one. I didn’t enjoy it at all. While I have always enjoyed Mel Gibson’s acting outings, his directorial efforts have always left me unmoved, except for Braveheart, of course. In my opinion, this movie was ridiculously gory (as you have mentioned)and explicit in just about every sense (as you have also mentioned). But then again, that’s just my opinion.
Vishesh, no issues, i know this is the kinda movie, you either end up hating or loving. In fact i know many who did not like this movie at all, and in fact thought i was one of the few persons who liked it, but was surprised to see many sharing my views.
Even I am surprised to find so much love for this movie! Ha ha… I read on Wikipedia that Tarantino called it “A masterpiece.” To each his own, I guess, but I vividly remember that night when I went to see this movie back in 2006 and for many nights afterward I couldn’t sleep properly!
nice artical ratnakar, i had seen this movie a year back and liked it a lot..as you said some scenes were quite gory and chilling but on a whole the movie has a very authentice look and feel of native americans…sply i liked the ending which gives the glimpse what is coming for mayans. I forgot the details of the ending scene but it was awesome one.