EPIC,
EXOTIC, AND HOLLYWOOD ACTION
APOCALYPTO
Directed by Mel
Gibson; written (in Maya, with English subtitles) by Mel Gibson and Farhad
Safinia; director of photography, Dean Semler; edited by John Wright; music
by James Horner
With: Rudy Youngblood, Dalia Hernandez, Jonathan Brewer, Raoul Trujillo, Gerardo Taracena,
Rodolfo Palacios, Fernando Hernandez, Maria Isidra
Hoil, Aquetzali Garcia, and Abel Woolrich.
Rated R. Running time: 138 minutes
Reviewed by Joel
Johnson
Apocalypto
is actor-turned director Mel Gibson’s fourth feature film and his follow-up
to The Passion of the Christ (2004). Gibson has been a very
popular film star almost from the instant he emerged from a postapocalyptic
Australia in Mad Max (1979) and The Road Warrior
(1981). Though his acting filmography shows a fair amount of versatility, he
has been most successful in roles that mixed action with sardonic humor.
This has also guided his directing career.
After directing
the made-in-Maine drama The Man without a Face (1993), Gibson has
directed films about momentous events filled with action in exotic locales.
Humor has played a leavening role. This was especially true in Gibson’s
Oscar-winning film Braveheart (1995). Gibson himself played William
Wallace, a commoner, who united thirteenth-century Scotland in rebellion
against domination by English King Edward I, nicknamed “Longshanks.” Wallace
and his fellow Scots, bedecked in blue paint, express their disdain for the
English and Longshanks by mooning them. This dollop of low comedy added to
the action of the epic conflict between the Scots and the English carried
the day over Best Picture Oscar rivals Apollo 13, Babe, Il
Postino, and Sense and Sensibility. In The Passion of the
Christ, Gibson next took audiences to first-century Israel, telling the
biblical story of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, the seminal event—or at least
half of it—for Christianity. It is only half because Christians believe that
the crucifixion was followed by the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus is not
remarkable because he was crucified since countless thousands shared that
awful fate. What makes Jesus so remarkable is the resurrection. However,
Gibson vividly portrayed the suffering of Jesus—the sacrifice made for all
sinners. Gibson cut against the grain of conventional filmmaking wisdom by
having all the dialogue spoken in Aramaic, using very few recognizable
actors, and nearly turning a film about an oft-portrayed ethereal Christ
into an action movie by emphasizing the brutality of his suffering. These
steps de-emphasized the audience’s awareness of watching a movie and
reinforced the story’s reality. The film resonated with audiences and was a
surprise box office megahit.
The film also was
a flash point in the “culture wars” that have raged across the United
States. Passion plays’ historical role in encouraging violence against Jews
was invoked as anti-Semitic by those seeing the film. It was deliberately
marketed to, screened for, and then embraced by leaders of the Christian
Right. The film was, at the same time, withheld from critics and other
mainstream film journalists. Gibson’s personal religious practice—a
pre–Vatican II Roman Catholicism—became a subject for publication and
speculation. Statements made by Mel Gibson’s father were quoted to question
the son’s anti-Semitism. Did he share the agenda of the Christian Right?
This past summer,
Mel Gibson was arrested for drunk driving. This never endears a celebrity to
the public, but exacerbating the public relations fallout was an
anti-Semitic tirade during the arrest.
You may be
wondering what this has to do with whether Apocalypto is a good movie
or not. It has nothing to do with it and yet has everything to do with it.
Unfortunately, for millions—including many film critics—it is impossible to
evaluate the film independent of the man who made it. How do you feel about
Mel Gibson? Do you have strong feelings for or against Mel Gibson? Be sure
to distinguish between reviewing the film and reviewing the man.
However, I did not
include all this background material just to inoculate you against failing
to distinguish between the people who make a film and the film itself.
Apocalypto is clearly an amalgamation of Gibson’s previous film
experiences.
Having starred in films set after the catastrophic
destruction of modern civilization, Gibson knows the powerful attraction of
a film about a civilization on the brink of disaster. In Apocalypto,
the Mayan civilization will soon face the onslaught of Spanish
Conquistadors. They are off-stage until the very end of the film and play no
definitive role in the film’s action. Without knowing that Spaniards
conquered the Indian empires of Central and South America, witnessing their
landing has no meaning. The film begins with a Will Durant quotation
originally applied to Rome: “No empire can be conquered from without until
it has been conquered from within.” This quotation does apply here as the
Mayan people seem deeply troubled, but we never grasp why because the film’s
perspective is entirely from outside Mayan civilization. Our perspective is
from a simple hunting and gathering tribe that has the misfortune to live
too close to the Maya.
We start on a hunting expedition and are treated to a
series of practical jokes at the expense of a tribesman who has not yet
fathered a child. This is it for comic relief as the tone soon turns grim
and violent—very violent. It has generated considerable comment from
critics. Certainly, filmgoers who find violent acts deeply distressing
should avoid this film. However, it is historically accurate that the Mayan
people did kidnap members of rival tribes and conducted human sacrifices on
a grand scale. One may question whether the violence needs to be quite so
graphic since its power can diminish with excessive use, but this story is
about violence. Coyness in showing it would undermine the film’s reality.
Gibson’s cast for
Apocalypto is even more unknown than his Passion cast. There
are no familiar names to lure film audiences. Many of the cast members are
making their first screen appearance. There are, however, no prior role
associations for film audiences to overcome. As in The Passion of
the Christ, Gibson has opted for the reality of using the language of
the native people portrayed. It will be interesting to see if American
filmgoers, often disdainful of subtitled films, will line up in significant
numbers to see this one. Although it does not have Passion’s built-in
advantage of appealing to all Christians, Apocalypto’s opening as the
number one box office film encourages validation for Gibson’s quest for
realism.
Set in a time and
place rarely portrayed, a series of disturbing set pieces shows Mayan
civilization desperate to appease its gods for relief from the plagues it
apparently suffers. Gibson and coscreenwriter Farhad Safinia sprinkle
prophetic paraphrased biblical excerpts throughout and even assign one to be
delivered by an eerily possessed young girl. Despite all this exoticism and
epic sweep, the story is actually fairly typical Hollywood fare. Jaguar Paw
(Rudy Youngblood) is a lone hero seeking to escape his brutal Mayan captors
to return to his pregnant wife Seven (Dalia Hernandez) and his young son.
Although the film cuts periodically back to Seven and the young boy trapped
in a deep hole in which they had hid when the Mayans raided their village,
the story belongs to the lone hero pitted against overwhelming adversity.
The last reel is almost exclusively a prolonged chase sequence with a band
of vengeful Mayans, led by the vicious Zero Wolf (Raoul Trujillo),
relentlessly pursuing a seriously wounded Jaguar Paw through dense jungle
and over a waterfall. These sequences are exhilaratingly captured in Dean
Semler’s cinematography and by James Horner’s exotically percussive score
even though they belie the reality that Gibson and company have sought to
create.
Though this film
purports (or is perceived) to have lofty ambitions, the film’s heart is with
its action and its hero. Ironically, the ending is reminiscent of many of
our own heroic Westerns. It’s not a great film, but it certainly is great
entertainment. May stars Rudy Youngblood and Dalia Hernandez find this as
successful a launching pad for their careers as the Mad Max films
were for their director. 
