Apocalypto

Recently I had the opportunity to watch Mel Gibson’s 2006 movie (as director) Apocalypto, uncut and uninterrupted. I had seen earlier promotion trailers for this film when it first came out in the theaters. Those short clips did little, though, to prepare me for the intense spectacle that awaited me with the full-length movie.

Apparently set in late 15th/early 16th century southern Mexico/northern Central America (Apocalypto’s ending fixes this time and place), a Mayan people still live on from generation to generation, long after their advanced civilization came to an abrupt and mysterious end centuries before. The movie’s protagonist, a young man named Jaguar Paw, lives with his wife and son in a close-knit jungle village. One day Jaguar Paw, his father, and some other men are out in the jungle when they run across a group of ragged refugees, fleeing some type of calamity that is pursuing them. Shaken by this experience, Jaguar Paw’s father admonishes him to not live his life by fear. But that night, the marauders responsible for those refugees’ plight invade the village, killing many and taking Jaguar Paw, his closest friends, and others into captivity and forcing them on an agonizing march to the ancient capital city. It is here that I stop with the movie’s narrative, just in case someone chooses to watch it for the first time. Needless to say, though, this dismal situation is just the beginning of Jaguar Paw’s ordeals and adventures.

Apocalypto is very graphic in its depiction of violence and brutality. I think that Gibson did this deliberately to make a legitimate point. Often nowadays there is a widely accepted historical narrative that the indigenous Americans were a peace-loving, civilized people who were more advanced in many ways than their contemporary European counterparts across the Atlantic. The narrative goes on to claim that, when European explorers and settlers encountered these native populations, they went about deliberately exterminating their cultures and subjugating them. And, of course, the diseases that the Europeans carried, especially smallpox, wiped out the great majority of the indigenous population in the “New” World.

Apocalypto makes no claims denying the European culpability within this narrative (and neither do I). Rather, it puts forth, through its engrossing story, the conjecture that, rather than framing things as “good natives vs. bad Europeans”, the circumstances are most accurately described as “humans with technology and civilized “trappings” vs. humans without technology and civilized “trappings”. For those who conquered and subjugated Jaguar Paw’s people were not Europeans but rather fellow Mayans who regarded themselves as more civilized. It is the universality of human behavior, in terms of both individual and group behavior, that Apocalypto proclaims. And it gives the viewer pause to reflect on whether our contemporary society, with its "shock and awe" and Daisy Cutters, is really more civilized and compassionate than the brutal aggressors in Gibson’s film.

Besides the allegorical messages from this movie, I was thoroughly taken by the detail given to language and setting. The acting was phenomenal as well, with me becoming emotionally connected to Jaguar Paw and his plight (as well as that of his family). Apocalypto was a great (albeit gruesome) balance of adventure story, compelling characters, and social message. I recommend that you watch it (unless you are a minor or prone to nightmares).