Apocalypto

Last night we watched Mel Gibson’s latest production “Apocalypto”. I have some major misgivings about this film. Its saving grace is the stunning cinematography and the set design. However this doesn’t make up for it’s myopic view of the Mayan race.

In the film’s early sequences we get a Spielberg-like treatment of a day in the life of Mayan tribesmen and their families. This includes mucho practical joking followed by feasting and then a campfire life-lesson from a tribal leader. Truthfully the sage parable was the only meaningful thing I took away from this film.

The rest of the film is an extended cliché, a car chase without the cars. At daybreak vicious Mayan warriors from another tribe raid the village. They kill, they rape, they pillage, they burn, they capture. Their leader is strong but pragmatic. One captor is a sadistic prick. Our hero sees his friends die, our hero gets mad, our hero overcomes his fears, escapes his captors, inventively kills off his pursuers, and in profound fashion discovers that there is an even larger threat to his family and his race.

Mel, it’s all in the history books. You’ve focused your efforts on the savage in fighting that partially contributed to the destruction of the Mayan race of that period (the Mayan race still exists today). What you’ve completely neglected is their innovative contributions to modern day society, instead reducing the Mayan tribes to ignorant, superstitious brutes.

(If you’re interested in their contributions and extensively developed civilization check out…)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization

Or is this a metaphor for America, or perhaps all of mankind, Mel? That we’ll self-destruct if we don’t start getting along with each other? Mel? MEL???

Too bad, this could have been a great film.