’Apocalypto’ as a movie triggers a lot of thoughts in your mind. The tag line for the movie is ‘When the end comes, not everyone is ready is go’ and the quote with which the film begins ‘A great civilization is not conquered from without until it is destroyed from within’ tells the story themself.
It is about the declining period of Mayan civilization and one man’s fight to escape from the sacrificial altar. Powerfully captured in the visual sense, the language is which the movie is dubbed gives tremendous scope to see the movie more visually than anything else, suspending the viewer from reality to quote Mel Gibson. Learnt later that the language is Yucatec Maya language! He has been absolutely right, because I have never watched so many pairs of intense eyes in a single movie.
Sometimes a movie can leave such a tremendous impact that it keeps running in your mind even after it really ends. At first I thought that tag line may well be apt for describing the movie itself. You don’t want to go, when the movie comes to an end. Very few directors have the art of making the viewers empathize with a movie completely. A feeling that you belong there and you are watching a story unfold in front of your eyes! Mel Gibson is one such guy. Be it the ‘Braveheart’ or the ‘Passion of Christ’, Gibson transports you to another world altogether. His penchant for perfection is very apparent in the construction of each scene.
Apocalypto is no different in that aspect. It is shot in such a way that you feel that you could smell the wetness of the soil and the fear of the people. A simple storyline of abduction & escape can never get more thrilling. The movie just draws you to the edge of the seat in the 10th minute and keeps you there for another 2 and a half hour’s.
There is a lot of gore and violence but somehow, as a viewer you tend to accept it, maybe because the story is set about 1200 years back and having been doled out a lot of senseless violence in contemporary movies, you somehow think it is perfectly OK for the men of that age to behave that way.
I kept thinking that though centuries have gone by, some fundamental human traits have never changed. The blind beliefs about God and our rituals to please Him, the fight for supremacy, the strong subduing the weak, the family ties, the loyalty to clan, the senseless behavior towards tribes that are not yours, civilization and barbarism coexisting and the scant respect of human lives, nothing has changed in 1500 years.
The Maya civilization is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as its spectacular art, monumental architecture, and sophisticated mathematical and astronomical systems. At its peak, it was one of the most densely populated and culturally dynamic societies in the world. And yet, there are behaviors that are completely incongruent to what civilization is defined for.
Now after a millennium, we are far more advanced but hold on to the same traits. So fundamentally nothing changes in such a short period. I had always maintained that whatever changes that is required in many touchy areas like female emancipation etc, the change can only be evolutionary and not something that can be achieved in a few years. Traditional men remain traditional.
Though I see plenty of movies, reviews or mention about them in my blogs have been rare & few. Unless I am really touched by the story, narration and the performance of the actors and the packaging of the movie as a whole!
Apocalypto fits the bill, perfectly.
It is about the declining period of Mayan civilization and one man’s fight to escape from the sacrificial altar. Powerfully captured in the visual sense, the language is which the movie is dubbed gives tremendous scope to see the movie more visually than anything else, suspending the viewer from reality to quote Mel Gibson. Learnt later that the language is Yucatec Maya language! He has been absolutely right, because I have never watched so many pairs of intense eyes in a single movie.
Sometimes a movie can leave such a tremendous impact that it keeps running in your mind even after it really ends. At first I thought that tag line may well be apt for describing the movie itself. You don’t want to go, when the movie comes to an end. Very few directors have the art of making the viewers empathize with a movie completely. A feeling that you belong there and you are watching a story unfold in front of your eyes! Mel Gibson is one such guy. Be it the ‘Braveheart’ or the ‘Passion of Christ’, Gibson transports you to another world altogether. His penchant for perfection is very apparent in the construction of each scene.
Apocalypto is no different in that aspect. It is shot in such a way that you feel that you could smell the wetness of the soil and the fear of the people. A simple storyline of abduction & escape can never get more thrilling. The movie just draws you to the edge of the seat in the 10th minute and keeps you there for another 2 and a half hour’s.
There is a lot of gore and violence but somehow, as a viewer you tend to accept it, maybe because the story is set about 1200 years back and having been doled out a lot of senseless violence in contemporary movies, you somehow think it is perfectly OK for the men of that age to behave that way.
I kept thinking that though centuries have gone by, some fundamental human traits have never changed. The blind beliefs about God and our rituals to please Him, the fight for supremacy, the strong subduing the weak, the family ties, the loyalty to clan, the senseless behavior towards tribes that are not yours, civilization and barbarism coexisting and the scant respect of human lives, nothing has changed in 1500 years.
The Maya civilization is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as its spectacular art, monumental architecture, and sophisticated mathematical and astronomical systems. At its peak, it was one of the most densely populated and culturally dynamic societies in the world. And yet, there are behaviors that are completely incongruent to what civilization is defined for.
Now after a millennium, we are far more advanced but hold on to the same traits. So fundamentally nothing changes in such a short period. I had always maintained that whatever changes that is required in many touchy areas like female emancipation etc, the change can only be evolutionary and not something that can be achieved in a few years. Traditional men remain traditional.
Though I see plenty of movies, reviews or mention about them in my blogs have been rare & few. Unless I am really touched by the story, narration and the performance of the actors and the packaging of the movie as a whole!
Apocalypto fits the bill, perfectly.
3 comments:
What a co-incidence! Watched it on a dvd this weekend and was totally mesmerised by the sights and sounds. It was a bit too brutal and sometimes one felt like throwing up.... but then I guess thats what Gibson had set out to do :)
And his penchant for using the contemporary language in period pieces ( Aramic in "Passion of the .. and Yucatan in this)is a tremendous value-add to the visuals. Its the closest one gets to time-travelling.
Long back I have decided machupichu in peru as my retiring place but this movie and recent world wonder contest made this place as a tourist spot and spoiled my plan. so I have chosen Choquequirao as my new retiring place.
Movie depicts one brutal side of mayan civilization which developed advanced maths concepts much earlier than European countries. Anyhow the message of the movie holds true for any civilization including present day USA.
@ Super Subra- USA & Civilisation? Isnt that an oxymoron?
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