Apocalypto begins with a quote by Will Durant, 'A great civilisation is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.'
Perhaps director Mel Gibson could have been warned that replacing the word 'civilisation' with 'movie' would help explain what would happen to Apocalypto at Oscar time, and at the American box office, after his drunken anti-Semitic rant sullied his image in the national and global media.
Filmed in the brutally violent style that is a Gibson trademark and made in the native Maya language, this film may be the most energetic and disturbing (yet unique) experience cinema audiences will have all year.
The essential plot of the film centres around the journey of a young Mayan hunter named Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) whose village is attacked by head hunters. The rulers of the Mayan kingdom believe that human sacrifice and the construction of more temples is the only way to ensure their continued prosperity. Having begun with a view of tranquil yet primitive village life, the movie quickly descends into the chaos of the violent attack on the village. After the brutal attack leaves several dead and more wounded, surviving adult prisoners, including Jaguar Paw, are taken to a nearby city to be sacrificed.
The second half of the film is essentially one long chase sequence, which takes place on foot and still manages to have more energy than most summer action blockbusters.
Intertwined with the story of Jaguar Paw and the hardships he endures is the tale of the pregnant wife and son he leaves behind, hidden in a barren well to protect them from the wrath of the attackers. Throughout the film, while he tries to find a way back to them, she cares for the children, both inside her and by her side while trying to climb out of the well.
The facility with which the director handles his subject matter and helps drive home truths about the world we live in by showing a way of life that died around the 16th century are nothing short of admirable. The male-female dynamic, the place of an individual in his social 'village', how pronouncements by distant people in high up places can affect the common man... these are all scenes in this movie as much as they are tales of modern lives being lived right now.
But though it attempts a lot and achieves even more, the film is not perfect. There are the Hollywood flourishes that manage to stain even a film as inaccessible as this one. The convenient blotting out of the sun is the most contrived of all sequences but it doesn't dull the edge of the film enough to make it pedestrian.
The performances by a cast of unknowns are top notch, especially the young hero who goes through the harshest rite of passage in recent movie history with a grace and dignity most genteel men would find themselves incapable of. The makeup effects are remarkable and the design of entire environments from primitive villages to the modern city is awe-inspiring.
This, however, is not just an adult movie; it is a mature movie. Despite the star rating this film is being given, it seems unlikely that most sections of the audience will have the stomach for the onscreen brutality. This is a movie that never flinches. Within the first five minutes of the film, an animal is brutally hunted and his genitals ripped out and offered up as a cure to an impotent hunter. Disturbing though this imagery might be, it is merely the tip of the metaphorical iceberg. Beating hearts are ripped out of still undead beings with alarming regularity. The amount of blood and gore in this movie far outstrips the bloodlust of the best horror films.
To stick with this film is to be delivered surprises, lessons and a moral at the end. But you have been warned! This is not for the easily offended, the faint-hearted or those on a date (unless it is to be your last). This is the movie that should have been nominated, and won, the Best Picture Oscar. Instead, it will serve as the moral of its own story because of the indiscretions of its maker.
Rediff Rating: