Apocalypto - review

Title: Apocalypto
Director: Mel Gibson
Cast: Dalia Hernandez, Mayra Serbulo, Gerardo Taracena, Raoul Trujillo
Released: 2006

"I haven't been this gripped in ages!" Said the hand to the cinema arm-rest. It's even stranger, then, to have your mind in a grip. Apocalypto doesn't let your mind go once it has it in a headlock.

Mel Gibson is wonderfully, refreshingly merciless in his approach to film-making. It feels as if he's been storing so much inside of him, and just released it all in this two-hour flurry of brilliance. He might give you humor once in a while, and you sense, somewhere amidst or behind his 'funny scenes' those same bright blue mischevious eyes Gibson himself used to flash as an actor when doing something funny. And yet, there is this underlying current of blood that runs through this film as fast, if not faster, than it runs through our human veins. You do not know what to expect at many turns in the film. More wonderfully, you feel everything that is being said and done, because he has a way of distilling things, and capturing the very essence of emotion in each action. The words are spare and deliberate, and the actions, shots and pauses likewise. The way the hero's wife has the very slight trace of a smile on her face as she kills a baby bear which she is presumably going to eat. She hasn't eaten for three days, and we see her humanity. The way Gibson so obviously casts evil, sneaky or vengeful-looking faces for the roles of the captors, and the shots we see of them snarling and taking pleasure in the pain of their captives. The way the actors look real. The way the real disgusting brutality of violence is shown, making you want to turn away (as I did on one occasion when a man had his face torn off). The face of the Mayan King with the sun glaring into it. The fat child sitting next to him. It is all genius, absolute genius, the closest you might come to recreating the vividness of a dream on screen. It's that powerful.

The main character looks quite similar to the Brasillian football prodigy Ronaldinho.

One review I read a week or two ago commented on how Gibson's portrayal of the Mayan culture was inaccurate. The reviewer seemed to be supporting a more defensive approach (defensive of Mayan culture) and lambasting Gibson's supposed ill-treatment of it. They compared the Mayan cruelty depicted in this film to the portrayal of the natives in the recent King Kong remake, and whilst I agree that on that occasion the film-makers were utilising some truly disturbing Orientalist/ borderline-racist techniques, on this occasion there's no case for Mel Gibson to answer at all. This film has absolutely nothing to do with History with a capital H. Any person with half a dogs' breakfast (brain) would tell you that most history is subjective. Given that it is also (usually) written and told by the conquerors, victors, the strong, this film (again) stands out as something totally unrelated to 'actual events', seeing as it doesn't seek to involve itself in any stance whatsoever, even the Christian arrival (which is one of the most wonderful moments in Cinema I believe I've ever witnessed). So what are dead civilisations there for? Why has the planet Earth unfolded in such a way that we have knowledge of these people who lived thousands of years ago? What is the point in it? Why is history a 'thing'? These are all useful points to think about before going to see this film. And whilst answers to those questions could keep coming until the end of time, one definite 'point' to history, to studying cultures who have deceased, in my mind at least, is to learn from them. To see what made them great, and what made them break. What was the source of their might, what was the source of their slip off the mountain-edge, and down into extinction?

I watched this amazing film, one of the best new films I have seen in the last 5 years, and I realised that what we were seeing here was timeless. It could apply to the American empire of today, and it could have applied to the Roman empire of yesterday. How amazing then, that such a grand and timeless theme can also fit within it so much humanity. And inhumanity. I think, despite the highs and lows this film takes you on, it is still very much a story of sadness. Sadness at the way people kill one another, and how the privileged exploit the weak, and sadness mostly at the tragedy of the after-effects of conflict. That being said, the time will fly by, you will wonder where it has gone, and it is an action-packed film. I am not one for action for the sake of action, but in this case, with each shot and each word so pregnant with meaning, I could not help but completely go along with every single moment. Gibson, and I can only talk for this very good film, has mastered the art of involving the audience. I don't believe I've been this involved, or cared this much, for a character in quite some time. A few cousins of mine saw the film a few days later, and they really didn't like it. One of them said today "It was too stressful." I agreed silently, thinking that the best art puts you through things, involves you, extracts emotional reactions from you. And on first exiting that dark AMC cinema in Houston, Texas, two words rolled around in my affected head, 'high art'.

Y.Misdaq aka Yoshi, 04 December 2006

Afterthought: This film needs to be seen on a big screen with big sound in my opinion, which is not humble. See it while you can in the cinema. Also, for comparitive watching on a slightly similar subject, I would recommend a very underrated film 'The Mission' starring Robert DeNiro & Jeremy Irons with a wonderful soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. It's totally different in style, a lot more political and historical, but equally as beautiful, human and most of all tragic.