Apocalypto
Thursday, 04 Jan 2007 13:25
Apocalypto: Run Rudy, run!
Directed by Mel Gibson, out January 5th, starring Rudy Youngblood, Dalia Hernandez and Raoul Trujillo
In a nutshell…
Man gets chased through jungle
What's it all about?
Set in the Yucatan peninsula (modern-day Mexico) in the 16th century, the events of Apocalypto are played out against the backdrop of the last days of one of the great Mesoamerican civilizations; the Mayans.
Oblivious to the fact that that the arrival of the first Conquistadors is only days away, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) and his father Flint Sky hunt tapir in the jungle just as their forefathers had for time immemorial.
But their earthly existence is shattered when native slave raiders led by Zero Wolf (Raoul Trujillo) attack their homes and take most of the villagers captive, with Flint Sky cruelly executed in front of his son. Jaguar Paw does succeed however in hiding his wife Seven (Dalia Hernandez) and unfortunately-named young son Turtles Run in a small cave, although a jungle vine representing their only means of escape is cut off.
The infirm and young are mostly left to die in the jungle by the warriors, who force march their bound captives to the nearby city. Along the way a small girl stricken with smallpox warns the Mayans of an impending apocalypse and upon arrival to the immense and alien stone city, the villagers could be forgiven for believing her.
The female villagers are quickly sold into slavery, while the men are painted blue and taken to the top of the pyramid in the centre of the city to be ritually sacrificed. As Jaguar Paw watches his friends have their beating hearts ripped out by obsidian knives before being decapitated and rolled down the pyramid's steps, a solar eclipse is taken as a sign by the priests that their gods' blood lust has been sated.
Far from being the end of Jaguar Paw's ordeal, he is then taken along with the other surviving male villagers to a dusty stretch of plain to be cruelly killed by his captors in the interests of sport. But driven by the need to return to his village to save his wife and child, Jaguar Paw manages to escape the warriors' gauntlet, killing Zero Wolf's son Cut Rock in the process. Tired, wounded and unarmed, Jaguar Paw rushes head first into the jungle with eight very angry Mayan warriors behind him, and the chase begins in earnest...
Who's in it?
Cinemagoers will be hard pressed to recognise anyone involved with the film apart from the director himself, for Apocalypto is entirely cast with unknowns. Youngblood, of Native American and African descent, is almost impossible not to root for as the tireless hero, and debutant Hernandez does pretty well in a role that sees her hide in a hole and eat a monkey for most of the film.
It is the members of Zero Wolf's slave gang that steal the show however, not least Gerardo Taracena's Middle Eye, who could sneer for central America.
As an example…
"I am Jaguar Paw, son of Flint Sky. My father hunted this forest before me. My name is Jaguar Paw. I am a hunter. This is my forest. And my sons will hunt it with their sons after I am gone," Jaguar Paw taunts his pursuers.
(Opening quote) "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within," Will Durant.
Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars
Gibson has probably irrevocably put a wedge between him and Hollywood's glitterati by his alcohol-induced anti-Jewish comments last year, but the producers of Apocalypto are confident enough with their film to have given it a very-Oscar friendly pre-Christmas US release date.
What the others say
"While the ancient dialects and weighty quotations suggest an arthouse epic, Apocalypto is basically a really good period popcorn flick," Paul Arendt, BBC.
"Over-the-top violence mars a brilliant ethnographic thriller of ancient times," Hollywood Reporter.
So is it any good?
Apocalypto is one of the strangest films of the last 12 months. At its core merely two hours of a man being dragged through a jungle and then running back into it, its unashamed uniqueness and utterly breathtaking visuals stop it from becoming just a Mesoamerican chase movie.
Just as he did in 2004's The Passion of the Christ and to a lesser extent Braveheart, Gibson puts his faith in ancient languages (this time Yucatec Mayan), and the film is all the more immersive because of it. Subtitles such as 'somewhere in the Yucatan peninsula, 16th century', are also thankfully omitted.
Besides linguistic correctness, Gibson's other key directorial trait, incessant blood and gore, is also on show by the bucket load. While the visceral action sequences become almost funny by the time a man has his face eaten by a panther, the sacrificial scenes in particular are likely to distress.
The film's timelessness and the alien portrayal of the Mayans are its main strengths, even taking into account criticism that it is inherently racist and historically inaccurate. The city dwellers are shown as a bloodthirsty, uncaring and admittedly vibrant culture, gleefully welcoming the headless corpses rolling down the blood-soaked steps of their stone pyramids.
At the same time the unnamed city's king and queen are illustrated as using religion to manage their heaving populace; the astronomically-savvy priests cleverly employing a solar eclipse as evidence that their gods have not forsaken them.
But even the prescient priests could not anticipate what lay just around the corner, as at the film's close European adventurers and Catholic missionaries take their first tentative steps upon the sands of a continent destined to be divided up and conquered.
The film's opening quote alludes to its allegorical nature; that the west is in terminal decline after eating away at its self through the sacrifice of its own children. As Gibson sees it, 3,000 US soldiers dying in Iraq is comparable to a Mayan emperor scratching his headdress over why countless sacrifices are not resulting in good harvests, before deciding that the only solution is the death of more innocents.
Of course the reality that Jaguar Paw stumbles upon is that the blood and decay of countless corpses being piled upon each other has soaked through and corrupted the very earth itself.
Ultimately however Gibson's parable becomes untenable, as in his film it is the Roman Catholic Spaniards that herald the end of a vicious and irrational society.
Despite its shortcomings, Gibson deserves praise for initiating a project so refreshingly different; Apocalypto is unlike anything you will have ever seen before. The locations and sets are stunning, as are the actors' make up and costumes, and the film is recommended for all those not of a faint disposition.
8/10
Matthew Champion
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