Films approaching the subject of the lost civilizations of Latin America are very rare, and that is a shame since the subject is so interesting. Fortunately, Mel Gibson offered us in 2006 Apocalypto, an epic movie in the line of Ridley Scott's big films (Gladiator- 2000, Kingdom of Heaven- 2005).
The film tells the story of Jaguar Paw, the son of the leader of a small tribe in the forest. Jaguar Paw is the future leader of the tribe, but also future father for the second time, and lives a nice and agreeable life with his friends in the forest. His destiny changes the day when Maya warriors attack their village to capture them in order to sell them as slaves or offer them as human sacrifices for the Gods. Imprisoned, Jaguar Paw will do everything in his power to survive, flee and find his pregnant wife and his son that he succeeded to hide during the attack.
Some Manichean characters
As the summary of the film attests, the intrigue is not really original. Here, the side of the bad guys and the one of the nice guys are delimited in a very Manichean way. The film represents the Mayas as sadistic brutes thirsty for blood and thus they appear as savages. Indeed, the film does not counterbalance this perspective at all, risking sometimes to move away from reality, as it never suggests the scientific and cultural advancements or the deep spirituality of the civilisation. Furthermore, the characters are very simplified as they are resumed to one virtue in the case of the members of Jaguar Paw’s tribute, or to a vice in the case of the Mayas. De facto, the spectators who loves the epic genre might be disappointed to face characters that are not really deep and who have questionable motivations compared to the characters, generally more complex, that populate epic movies.
A tale of adventures
Nonetheless, the film remains a visually magnificent and adventurous tale that offers to the spectators a trip simultaneously sumptuous, captivating and impressive in times and space. The world that Gibson depicts is really beautiful. Thanks to the grandiose landscapes, the incredible makeups and the costumes, the film makes everything in its power to immerse the spectators in a lost civilisation. It really is a film that we do not only watch, but also "live”. The movie is thus really absorbing and goes really fast despite its 2h19, so that we want to discover more about this captivating world.
A rare violence
The film is thus a true saga that immerges the spectators in Mayas’ times. The fight scenes are also really breathtaking. Nonetheless, it is recommended to the sensitive persons not to watch it, as the film possesses a violence that has rarely been shown in cinema.
A colorful and vivid civilization
The scenes happening in the Maya city, and especially the sacrifice’s ones, are both very violent and very beautiful. The image’s composition and the use of colors are simultaneously very symbolical and visually magnificent. The second third of the film is thus probably the best, because of its cinematography and the actions happening there.
The clash of civilizations
Additionally, the oeuvre seems to propose a beginning of reflexion about the decline of the “civilized” who believe to be more evolved that the others, but that yet impose themselves through violence, which leads to the resentment of the exterior populations and to the internal divisions of these civilisations, and consequently, ultimately to their destruction. Such a subject is more than ever very contemporary, and the reflexion suggested by the film is thus very interesting. Mel Gibson indeed offers a very pessimistic perspective of a very barbaric humanity, before presenting, in the last segment, how nature takes over its right. The film thus pushes its spectators to think about the sustainability of the lifestyle and of the legitimacy of the values of the “civilized”.
Apocalypto is thus a very good epic entertainment that approaches a subject relatively original. The film is probably not a masterpiece because of its very Manichean approach of a conflict of civilisations; nonetheless, the cinematography, the sceneries, the makeups and the costumes mask this default by immerging totally the spectators in this mysterious epoch. Besides, the film does not settle for being a simple entertainment well realized as it offers a reflexion about the decline of civilisations, a reflexion that is more than ever very contemporary.
