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Movie Review by:
Jim "Good Old JR" Rutkowski
Directed by: Mel Gibson
Written by: Mel Gibson, Farhad Safinia
Starring: Dalia Hernandez, Mayra Serbulo, Gerardo Taracena
Running time: 137 minutes,
Released: 12/08/06.
Rated R for sequences of graphic violence and disturbing images. |
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 One
thing you can say with a fair degree of certainty about Mel
Gibson’s “Apocalypto” is that it’s unlike any other movie
you’ll encounter this holiday season--or most any other
season of any year. On the one hand it’s a sort of folly, a
bizarre re-imagining of a long-dead culture that can be
interpreted as an oblique commentary on what Gibson
undoubtedly sees as a central problem of modern American
society (though one that can be interpreted differently by
different viewers). Like “The Passion of the Christ,” the
dialogue is spoken in a language (Yucatec Maya) that it’s
reasonable to suppose most viewers won’t be familiar
with–hence the need for subtitles. And many are likely to
find it gruesomely violent and decidedly uncomfortable to
watch, without the justification some of them found for the
explicit bloodletting of “The Passion.”
And yet despite its oddity “Apocalypto” has a visionary
quality that makes it weirdly beautiful and endlessly
fascinating. And Gibson has invested it with such visceral
energy that despite being a story about death (of
individuals, communities and whole societies), it pulses
with cinematic life. It may be a folly, but it’s one whose
ambition you have to respect and whose execution is
idiosyncratic in a good sense.
The film opens with a wild boar hunt conducted by the men of
a jungle village, among whom the lithe and virile Jaguar Paw
(Rudy Youngblood) stands out. The hunt concludes with a
macho joke that’s likely to gross out a goodly portion of
the audience right off, but more importantly it’s
interrupted by a group of bedraggled survivors from a nearby
settlement fleeing from unnamed ravagers, who shortly go on
their way. Returning to their home with meat for the
community, the men settle down for the night (in a sequence
of unabashed sensuality) until the entire village is
stealthily attacked by those invaders--a vicious band led by
Zero Wolf (Raoul Trujillo), who has his warriors kill the
women and enslave the men, leaving the children behind. But
before being taken himself, Jaguar Paw is able to hide his
own wife (Dalia Hernandez) and son (Carlos Emilio Baez) in a
deep cavern, promising to return.
The next act has Zero Wolf and his sinister lieutenant Snake
Ink (Rodolfo Palacios) lead their captives back to the Mayan
capital, where they are to be publicly sacrificed and
decapitated on the great pyramid to appease the gods, whose
displeasure has clearly been shown by a prolonged drought
and epidemic. Along the way, however, an infected little
girl they encounter issues a dark prophecy about the coming
of disaster for the civilization. This central portion of
the film, with its grotesque imagery and palpable sense of
savagery, is its most unsettling.
The final act begins when Jaguar Paw is abruptly saved from
execution by a quirk of nature and, after being forced to
run a ghastly gauntlet (comparable to the one in “Army of
Shadows,” for those of you who saw that film about the
French resistance), runs furiously back to his village to
save his family (threatened with drowning from a pouring
rain), pursued all the way by Zero Wolf and his minions.
This extended chase is packed with energy and, it must be
said, bloody demises. A concluding surprise ends the
race--and portends the disappearance of the Mayans.
There will be disagreement as to what all of this is
intended by mean; an opening title from Will Durant (a name
not much heard nowadays) speaks of a civilization decaying
from within before it falls to outside forces, but obviously
it could apply to different scenarios. Many will see “Apocalypto,”
as Gibson has himself suggested, as a critique of any
society that relies on fear to keep itself united--a message
with contemporary political overtones. But in view of
Gibson’s religious beliefs, it could just as easily--and
perhaps more plausibly--be taken as a critique of the sort
of “culture of death” that the Mayans, as here depicted,
represent (and many believe today’s western civilization to
represent, too).
But setting aside such deeper concerns, what Gibson’s
picture is certainly about is pulsating excitement,
especially in the two great set-pieces--the beginning hunt
and the concluding chase--and the attempt to recreate, or
more properly to creatively imagine, a long-vanished and
mysterious society. It succeeds brilliantly in the first
instance, thanks to Gibson’s taut direction, the athletic
prowess of the actors, the almost tactile cinematography of
Dean Semler, and John Wright’s crisp editing. And in the
second it actually manages to suggest a decaying, utterly
foreign culture, courtesy of a superb design and production
team including Tom Sanders, Theresa Wachter, Carlos
Benassini, Erick Monroy, Jay Aroesty and Mayes C. Rubeo. The
cast respond with committed turns across the board, with
Youngblood and Trujillo standing out as the chief
adversaries, and James Horner contributes a moody, evocative
score.
There isn’t a great deal of humor in “Apocalypto,” apart
from the moment when, walking back to the Mayan capital with
his prisoners, Zero Wolf is nearly killed by a tree felled
for lumber and shouts, “I’m walking here!,” inevitably
recalling the famous words if Ratso Rizzo. But it’s a film
of such astonishing vibrancy, stunning imagination and sheer
bravado that even if you need to avert your eyes from the
screen from time to time, you’ll know you’ve experienced
something unlike virtually every other film you’ll ever see.
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APOCALYPTO ©
2006 Icon Productions.
All Rights Reserved
Review © 2006 Alternate Reality, Inc. |
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