Apocalypto
Review by James Slone
The Noble Savage returns in a big way in “Apocalypto,” Gibson’s latest ultra-violent ultra-Catholic spectacle. This one takes place in the pre-colonial jungles of Mexico and Guatemala, but the noxious clouds of “Braveheart” and “The Passion of the Christ” hang heavy in the air. The costumes are different, but the ideas are the same, leading some to suggest the title of auteur for Gibson. He’s certainly a consistent and competent director, but his ideas range from silly to abysmally stupid. A deep and thoughtful artist he isn’t.
The avenging messianic figure this time out is Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), an Amerindian living in small, close knit tribe of hunter-gatherers on the edge of the dying Mayan civilization. On a hunting expedition led by his father, he encounters the bedraggled remnants of a defeated tribe on the run. Apprehensively, he returns to his village, where he and his fellow tribesman apparently live in utopian harmony with nature and the dominant form of entertainment are dick jokes. Naturally Jaguar Paw has a pregnant wife for the purpose of being rescued (and pumping out baptismal children) later in the film.
When Mayan slavers show up, the villagers are either murdered or rounded up, providing Gibson with his chance to show the graphic execution of Jaguar Paw’s father. A particularly nasty Mayan slashes his throat in exactly the same way the nasty Englishman slashed William Wallace’s girlfriend’s throat in “Braveheart.” This scene exists primarily to make us hate the Mayans without really getting to know them. If we’re to sympathize with Jaguar Paw, we must despise the Mayans. Dehumanizing one group is always a great way to humanize another.
Jaguar Paw’s wife and son are able to hide in a hole, but the others are hauled to a Mayan city. On the way there their captors encounter a series of portents and omens, including a little girl with small pox who speaks of the coming destruction of the decadent Mayans in the kind of prophetic language that would make an old huckster like Nosetradamus proud. Of course, smallpox is divine retribution for the sins of the Mayans- never mind that smallpox was an indiscriminate killer that wiped out most indigenous Americans before the Europeans who carried it could. If Gibson is to be believed, the epidemic was really left hand of god smiting the pagans.
The Mayans themselves, it turns out, have all the worst traits of the Aztecs. The lack of a real historical record gives Gibson license to make things up, and make things up he does. Gibson’s Mayans worship the sun and take their victim’s hearts in an elaborate ceremony on a pyramid. Some film makers would be interested in the administration of the city states or the day to day activities of the Mayans. But not Gibson. His Mayans are mainly concerned with running their very own Temple of Doom. They’re violent and backward heathens just asking for a holy comeuppance and you had better believe they get it.
Jaguar Paw, through divine intervention naturally, escapes the bloody fate of the other captives and the film settles into a series of chase sequences climaxing in the gory deaths of his Mayan pursuers. The action here is relentlessly paced and brutally violent, showcasing Gibson’s best traits as a filmmaker. He knows how to get the audience’s blood pumping, and when a trap is sprung or a jaguar leaps out of the foliage, the tension is palpable. A jump from a waterfall is scary and breathtaking, even suspenseful- if the film were just a series of sequences like this, “Apocalypto” would be a serious entertainment.
But the momentous action is only a slender third of an overwrought and ultimately empty headed film. The climax is so heavy handed I almost expected Jesus Christ to make a cameo Book of Mormon style, appearing before the natives and explaining to them how they’re really a lost tribe of Israel. The ending, which I will try not to give away, makes the argument that the best thing that ever happened to the Amerindians was the Spanish conquest.
Simply ignore the fact that the Spanish borrowed most of the imperial administration of the Aztecs and Incas in order to maintain their dominance in the new territories or that only a handful of Catholics really cared one way or another how the conquered were treated. According to “Apocalypto” the “noble savages” in the jungle were really proto-Catholics- they even worship a thinly veiled version of the Virgin Mary in the film- sacrificed by pagan despots, waiting to be liberated by the comparatively civilized Iberians.
“Apocalypto” has one good idea. It features an all indigenous cast speaking in a contemporary Mayan dialect. Rudy Youngblood is particularly good as Jaguar Paw, stunningly photogenic with a smile like the sun. The whole cast is fairly believable in their roles, and given the incredible locations, it’s not hard to see why. An all Native American cast in a high budget movie is unprecedented and will hopefully encourage other filmmakers to consider large-scale films with unknown, non-Anglo casts.
Unfortunately this inspired casting is in service of Gibson’s vacuous and prurient form of Christianity, a rigid ideology incapable of acknowledging any mistakes before Vatican II. His religious message starts small and grows as the movie progresses, becoming more and more ridiculous and overblown. Yes, it’s personal filmmaking. But it’s also bad filmmaking, polemical and insistently counterfactual. Which might be okay if Gibson had any ideas beyond, “Christianity good!!!”
In the world of “Apocalypto” the Amerindians are divided into two groups: noble savages and just plain savages, and the only thing that can save them from themselves is small pox and forced conversion. Because Gibson plays fast and loose with the historical record, his Neanderthal teleology seems perfect and unimpeachable so long as you don’t know anything about Mayans or la Conquista.
God has a plan. Too bad it involves rape, slavery, and the deaths of millions. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord, Mr. Gibson, and it ain’t pretty.