The land outside my town pours around decaying ranches and rusted cars, past lean cattle dogs and brown men in cowboy hats and torn jeans. My friend, Leo, lives here, lives in a stucco home with a dog the color and texture of the same dry prairie grass he roams.
Leo rides horse next to bull, pitches lariat in the rodeo ring. He cuts a fine figure, his hair sleek and long behind the wind, his body poised to jump from stallion to steer. The only thing that breaks the mold of ancient Navajo warrior is his black plastic-rimmed glasses, the kind you buy at the drug store, one side missing an earpiece. He once roped electrons at Los Alamos, at the great laboratory of atom-smashing death, but gave it up to measure nature three years ago, the month he turned 40.
Leo called me over the weekend.
"Come on, Birdie. Let's go to the movies. I want to celebrate your birthday. 41 is a good year, at least it was for me. We can see that movie about the Mayans."
He spoke with the short staccato syllables of the local Spanish, each word sounding like a gentle question.
"Mel Gibson's movie? Apocalypto? You've got to be kidding."
Leo couldn't see the roll of my eyes, the sad shake of my head. Who wants to see a poem of violence, the glimpse into a troubled man's head?
"Birdie, come on. We're both Native American. It's about our people in a way."
So we went, quarter-Cherokee-mostly-white-chick me in a green velvet dress over black slacks, full-Navajo Leo in head-to-ankle denim. We bought popcorn with extra butter and shared a box of Milk Duds. The theatre echoed with the gentle crunch of our snacks. No other patrons joined us, no others wanted to watch an early evening bloodfest. I watched my friend as he ate. His silver bracelet collected drops of fake butter. He lifted booted feet onto the seats in front of us, and I followed suit. The screen rolled from advertisement to endless preview, finally breaking free. Movie Mayans filmed the screen, grabbed me by the throat.
You've probably read the newspaper reviews, the commentary. You know the movie tells the story of Mayan decadence, of the time just before white men invaded the new world. You've heard the stories of violent death and destruction, the way Mel Gibson filled every five minutes with one horror after another, the way he reduced the recipe of a culture into one small measuring cup filled with stereotype-tinged syrup. All of these things are true, are disturbing, are brutal and graphic. The story is simple, a chase, a chase to the death - of simple life, of culture. The hero becomes a cross between Rambo and Macgyver, a lone wounded man forced to march, starved for days, yet he outruns and outfights an entire squad of steady fit warriors.
But something surprised me, caught me off-guard. The movie forced me inside of it, forced me to run alongside the reel itself, to almost smell and taste the civilizations it portrayed, unlike any movie experience I ever had. Leo and I stared in silence, the popcorn forgotten. I became the hero, became the evangelical high priest, the hidden pregnant woman, the scared child. I became them fully, as if I created their thoughts, breathed the subtitles onto the screen with my own vapor.
Leo and I didn't speak much on the long ride home. I don't much care for Gibson, for his meditations on hate, on killing, on racism. But I couldn't hate his movie. I don't know if it was silent cell memory of my ancient ancestors, or if a part of me needed the wash of pain and fury. I don't know. The movie became something other than a movie, became a ride of immersion, some kind of strange baptism.
Leo summed it up best as he walked me to my door.
"Birdie, I can't explain it. How can something on a flat white screen make my heart beat this way? I ride the range every day, and I swear Gibson has, too. It's like he tore up the prairie and grabbed the people around me and tossed them into the mix. You can't see it, but it's there. All of my life was there."
We hugged goodnight. The moon hit the rim of his cowboy hat, handed me a sliver of understanding, the knowledge that one could know the truth about a piece of art yet still enjoy the ride.
"Yeah, Leo. Mine too. Mine too. All of my life on that screen, my tattoo-running-blood-letting life."
Apocalypto - Directed by Mel Gibson; written (in Maya, with English subtitles) by Mr. Gibson and Farhad Safinia; director of photography, Dean Semler; edited by John Wright; music by James Horner; production designer, Tom Sanders; produced by Mr. Gibson and Bruce Davey; released by Touchstone Pictures. Running time: 138 minutes.
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Comments: 28
Your review is splendid; you've taken a movie review and related it to people that I know - you and Leo, whom I know from your writing - so that the description of the overall experience makes it almost as though I'd been there too. Thank you for your always excellent work! All the best to you!
Thank you for an excellent review. You have summed up the essence of the movie much better than any other critic I have read.
Is that logical? Is that reasonable? Is that tolerant? No, no, and no.
And I don't give a shit.
I didn't want to see Gibson's film, but I wanted to say Yes to my friend Leo. And I'm glad I did, I can't quite get the words right, tell you all the visceral connection I had to the piece. He's a tortured soul, he tortures himself, locks himself in positions rigid, authoritarian, positions I tend to see as lacking in compassion. But then his film had moments of incredible grace and beauty where that damn assumption of compassion bit me in the butt.
Who are we? Any of us? I guess watching Apocalypto made me ask those questions of Gibson, of myself.
When Arabs burn women who disappoint in the marriage bed we say 'well it's terrible, but it's their culture... '
When you beat and brainwash a child into a man with the outright lies and mythology of the Catholic Church, and he lives that program, supports his family, stays with teh woman he married years ago, and won't play 'hollywierd', it's OK to say "he's an ass"... ???
I haven't seen the movie, but I have read much about some currently popular ancient cultures. Most kept slaves acquired not by purchase from their own people on the coast line but by military style raids into peaceful weaker communities.. MOST,... because it was just too inconvenient to have to go after said slaves when they tried to escape (not yet having Spanish Horses to ride down these slaves), mutilated them by cutting their Achilles tendons.
But we sort of neglect that aspect of their cultures because after all 'we' destroyed them, (when in fact those that did MOST of the destruction speak a foreign language to my ancestors, and check another racial box on the forms that we all fill out), and 'WE' are responsible for elevating their memory.
Gibsons trials and tribulations are of his own making in many ways, but he's far less dangerous than Brittany or Tupac, or Mary-Kate and Ashley, BECAUSE he is capable. He is, "ass" or not, a person committed to his viewpoint.
There was a time when that was likely to be at least respected, but it seems that now all is meanness and if it's a 'cauc-y' target there is a special element of GLEE in hanging the Albatross..
but I'm not supposed to point that our am I...
Lets just say that "I don't give a shit."
I've seen "The Triumph of the Will" and understand how a movie can be gripping regardless of the subject matter or the director's purpose.
Ernie, thanks for commenting! I'm glad you enjoyed the crazy ride. And yeah, this movie and Gibson breed controvery like bunnies.
Despite this, I'm pretty sure I will watch the movie when it comes out on DVD, which is when I watch everything except kid's movies we go and watch as a family. The thing is, it sounds really interesting, and it should come as no news that people can be complete asses and very talented at the same time.
Great review, you have the talent of bringing people along on your movie date. I felt like the little bird perched on your shoulder. I wanted to see this movie, but through the holiday I was content just hanging out.
What I want to know is - if the movie had the same recipe of "Passion of the Christ", and if the effect will be the same on ordinary TV (DVD).
Jai, thanks! I love little birds perched on my shoulder, so you are most welcome to sit a while. I think Apocalytpo was quite different than Passion in terms of theme, style, and movement. The one similarity is the broad theme spanning both films that politics and greed breed corruption and must be cleansed through some kind of ritual of fire (so to speak). Passion is a story of redemption, ultimately, and forgiveness while Apoc is a chase flick without those deeper threads. But Apoc felt so much more alive to me, the cinematography is intense and lush, it pulls you in. I love the crazy subtitles in Apoc, the way that the Mayans speak in ways just like modern teenagers. At first I found it jarring, but I had a flash memory of reading Chaucer for the first time and being blown away that those old old people talked about... spears (wink wink) and all kinds of other innuendo the way we do now. People don't change, not really. We are all of one piece.
Carol, gracias. I'm glad you were able to watch it with me, as it were...
I wanted to leave you a quick note - I saw the movie today. There were 10 other people in the theater with me. My wife refused to see it. So my birdie and I went.
My reaction:
Good movie making does not require language or speach; I was spellbound by the human survival instincts, human wickedness and family. I think I would have understood the movie even without sub titles. Lots of blood and violence. A couple walked out in between the sacrifice scene - most creepy.
I did like "Apocalypto" in the abstract. The movie was way too long, it was as you said focused on the grit of life, totally fake, one man unfed, wounded, walked for days and having seen his whole tribe destroyed ... I hate that kind of stuff .. I simply hate it ... because it is so phoney and unbelieveable and yet people seem to eat it up, like they can imagine themselves doing that ... so juvenile. The visions of the city... I have been to Chichen Itza, and it was well done, that is that I liked, a fleeting glance that was created, that stayed with me after the Hollywood part of the movie was over.