Mel Gibson's amazing Apocalypto

Apocalypto is an epic tale about Mayan civilization from writer/director Mel Gibson. This excellent action movie was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Makeup and Sound. Although it isn’t as good as Braveheart, Mel Gibson has succeeded in creating another wonderful historical epic, even if he takes some liberties with the historical parts.

This movie tells the story of a small group of villagers who are attacked and taken prisoner by another group, then escorted back to a huge Mayan city where they are to be offered up as human sacrifice. The central character is a young man (Rudy Youngblood) who desperately wants to escape captivity and return home to his pregnant wife and child before something else gets to them. It’s a classic story about human nature set against Mayan civilization. No movie has ever explored the Mayans like this before.

After Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, I think a lot of people expected this movie to have some kind of message about pagan civilizations and the like. Allow me to make it very clear - This movie doesn’t have any kind of Christian message. It’s about the South American people who lived and thrived in the jungle and how they struggled to live among one another. If there’s any message to be taken from this story, it’s that people throughout history have fought and killed each other for one reason or another, and the only thing that ever really changes is the technology with which they make war.

I think this movie would have done well to shave off about 15 minutes running time to keep it at a nice, even two hours. Gibson let the cameras linger a little too often in scenes where we see basically the same thing too many times. There’s also a lot of running around, since this is basically one big chase movie, especially during the last half hour, and I think some of that could have been trimmed down. Not that I found the movie to be boring in any way, but I don’t think anything would have been lost from the story if a few more pieces of film had ended up on the cutting room floor.

I think Mel Gibson did a stellar job of directing this movie by telling the story more with visuals than with dialogue. There is a huge chase scene toward the end that goes on for a long time without hardly a word spoken, but you barely notice because there is so much happening on screen. Gibson used the environment very wisely to both help and hinder the characters in their struggles. Throughout the movie, and especially in the third act, there is a constant stream of visual cues which liken these men with their natural surroundings.

There is a very pivotal scene where the hero is taken atop a Mayan temple and about to be sacrificed. Moments before the priest plunges the obsidian knife into his chest to remove the heart and offer it up to the gods, there is a solar eclipse. The priest then tells the people that the gods stopped the light as a sign that their hunger is satisfied and no more killings would be needed. He then waits a few moments and asks the gods to return the light, and then of course the sun slowly becomes visible again.

During the eclipse scene, it shows the priest and the emperor constantly exchanging glances with one another. Also, if you watch very carefully, you'll see the queen roll her eyes as they prepare another sacrifice. It is very well known that the Mayans developed an accurate calendar, and I think the way the priest and emperor exchange glances implies that they both knew the eclipse was going to take place that day. Right before the priest asks for the light to come back, he and the emperor sort of smile at each other, as if silently acknowledging how well their 'show' was going and how enthralled the people would be. It's all very subtle, but I think the scene showed how the priest and emperor were manipulating the people.

After writing the two previous paragraphs, I watched the scene again with the DVD commentary track turned on. Gibson, along with co-screenwriter Farhad Safinia, confirmed my suspicions. They both talked about how throughout history, people in positions of power have always had access to the most information, and they used that information to exercise control. This is exactly what was happening during the sacrifice scene. I think Gibson should be commended for using very simple visual cues to hint at the cohesion between the emperor and the priest, almost as if the two were winking at each other.

The performances in this movie are incredible when you consider that a large part of the cast had never been in a movie before. During the DVD commentary, Gibson and Safinia talk about how they found some of the cast members and they constantly compliment the actors. Rudy Youngblood gave a very powerful performance as the hero of the story.

Apocalypto is a great movie and it’s a shame it didn’t do better at the box office. I think the movie’s length, combined with Gibson’s very famous drunken tirade and subsequent arrest, hurt this movie. I’m hoping now that it is on DVD, people will discover its brilliance.