The film was shot in Catemaco in the state of Veracruz , and in the State of Campeche in Mexico . The actors play characters speaking in Yucatec Maya , a language still spoken today by over 750 000 people in Yucatan , Mexico .

Apocalypto depicts the unknown actors from Mexico , particularly of the Yucatan peninsula, but also Native Americans of the United States and Canada , as well as Aboriginal Los Tuxtlas and Veracruz

Mel Gibson financed the film himself. Disney has signed for distribution in certain markets. The film was scheduled for 4 August 2006 but Touchstone Pictures has postponed to 8 December 2006 due to heavy rains that have disrupted the filming in Mexico.

On 23 September 2006 , Gibson made a pre-screening before two audiences consisting primarily of Native Americans in the State of Oklahoma at the Riverwind Casino in Goldsby , owned by the Chickasaw Nation , and the Cameron University in Lawton . He also made a pre-screening at Austin , Texas September 24, 2006 together with an actor of the movie, Rudy Youngblood

Themes

According to E. Michael Jones, the film was partly conceived as a political allegory about civilizations in decline .

Hang Film

Title: Mel Gibson titled his film Apocalypto, because convinced that this word meant "new beginning", as he told reporters before the film's release, although it is actually a Greek verb meaning I reveal (Apocalypse = Revelation).

The film begins with this quote from Will Durant :

"A great civilization is not conquered from outside unless it is destroyed from within"

During game hunting tapir in the jungle Mesoamerican , Jaguar Paw ( Rudy Youngblood ), his father Flint Sky (Morris Birdyellowhead), and their hunting companions encountered a column of refugees frightened and traumatized. The head of the procession then told that their lands were ravaged, and with the permission of Flint Sky, it continues its journey through the forest. When Jaguar Paw returns to the village, Flint Sky asks his son not to let fear seep into him in the procession. At night, the tribal elder tells the village a fable of a man who never dangerously n'tanchait his desire, despite the capacity of the animal kingdom. The people follow the story with music and dance, leaving Jaguar Paw meditate.

The next morning, Jaguar Paw wakes from a nightmare with a start. While everyone is asleep, Jaguar Paw sees individuals enter the village, setting houses on fire with torches. The attackers, led by Zero Wolf (Raoul Trujillo), attack the villagers and caught as many as possible. Jaguar Paw escapes with his pregnant wife, Seven ( Dalia Hernandez ) and his son, Turtle Run, and hides in a pit (probably a Chultun ) by having them down with a vine. Jaguar Paw returns to defend his village but he was captured with the rest of his tribe.

Reviews

Cinema

According to the Rotten Tomatoes movie was received with somewhat favorable reviews of movies .

First : "Driven by a demented energy, Gibson offers a very pessimistic vision of humanity intrinsically barbaric.

Paris Match : Alain Spira "Apocalypto is, above all, a great popular film some scenes may make us smile (...) but if you let yourself take on, guarantees a rather eventful trip original and exceptional" .

The Village Voice : "With its sumptuous exoticism, both specific and timeless, Apocalypto is a powerful parable and a spectacular end of civilization. But amid decadence and bloody chaos, we witness the birth of a hero .

TV cinobs ( Le Nouvel Observateur ), "an extraordinary adventure story, with challenging but necessary violence reaches more than once a greatness that American cinema does not accustomed us .

Telerama : "New butcher signed Mel Gibson , among the Mayas. Warning turnip . "

Stereotype

The film was criticized by the magazine Archaeology, for his description of a violent brutal Mayan society, ignoring the "scientific achievements" and "deep spirituality" of civilization .

Mayan leaders argue that "the scenes of Mayans with bone piercings to propagate stereotypes about

In Guatemala , the official said racism against the film was racist and contributes to the demonization of the indigenous culture . Juan Tiney, the council coordinator and indigenous farmers in Guatemala criticized the film saying that "the level of violence of the film could make some people say that the Mayas were a violent people that only could have been saved by the arrival of Spaniards, when history shows that the opposite ".

Plagiarism

Juan Mora Catlett Gibson accused of having copied at least some visual elements, citing the example of Indian painted blue from head to feet and to have plagiarized some scenes of his film has Regreso Aztln dating from 1991 .

Historicity

Gibson wanted to give his film a certain authenticity, and it appealed to Richard Hansen, an archaeologist and expert in Mayan civilization. Despite this caution, the film has provoked debate about its historicity.

The San Diego Tribune published an article on the question of the historicity of the film, interviewing experts on Mayan civilization . Mark McGuire, the movie contains a number of unknown objects from the pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, the peaks of metal javelin. The Mayan city mix of details from different Mesoamerican and Mayan cultures separated in space and time . For example, the temples are of the form from those of Tikal located in the central lowlands of classic style as they are decorated with stylistic elements newest Puuc northwest Yucatan. The mural includes elements of the arches of Mayan codices combined with elements of the murals of Bonampak (previous 700 years at the time of the action of the film) and the murals of San Bartolo (approximately 1500 years old at the time of the film's action) - as in most civilizations, the Maya art styles have evolved over the centuries. Elements of non-Mayan civilizations as those of Teotihuacan and the Aztecs are also present.

Robert Carmack, a professor of anthropology at the University of Albany, said that "it is a great mistake - almost a tragedy - he presents this as a Maya film." Edgar Martin del Campo his colleague from the same university, said the erroneous nature of some scenes, arguing among other things "that the Maya knew astronomy and were not frightened by an eclipse as described in the film. " . By 1952, the Guatemalan writer Augusto Monterroso was along the same lines, he used this idea ironically reversing the roles in his novel Eclipse, in which a monk who tried to use this deception is sacrificed while the priest reads calmly " one by one, each of the dates of lunar and solar eclipses, the astronomers had predicted and recorded in their codex without the invaluable help of Aristotle ".

In fact, nothing in the scene described the priest had not foreseen the eclipse, the organization of the ceremony, the peak was reached during the eclipse indicate quite the opposite. At the beginning of the eclipse, the celebrant turns to the sovereign, who shakes his head, after which the two men exchange a smile. The solar eclipse is followed the next night by a full moon, which is absurd since it can only occur 14 days after an eclipse.

Stephen Houston, professor of anthropology at Brown University , indicated that victims of human sacrifice among the Mayans were the kings, members of royal families, and other high-ranking nobles. "They did not run after ordinary people to sacrifice" (see Washington Post of December 15, 2006).

Conversely, Historia indicates that other population groups could be sacrificed, particularly prisoners of war, like in the movie: "Each deity represents a particular rite in which victims are promised the rank of" Acting of god. " For the god of rain, especially venerated, they are children that are drowning their tears is a good omen for heavy rains .

Karl Taube, professor of anthropology at the University of California at Riverside , objected about the huge pit filled with corpses. "We have no evidence of mass graves." Professor Taube also objected that the high number of slaves is something for which there is no proof. Conversely, Historia indicates that some sacrifices can indeed be massive, "So, in 1487, several hundred prisoners are sacrificed for the occasion (the inauguration of a temple) . But maybe there's some confusion with thousands of sacrifices made during the inauguration of the great pyramid of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan.

Zachary Hruby, UC Riverside, deplores the use of the Yucatec language, because it gives a veneer of authenticity to a film that takes so many liberties inappropriate about it. More specifically, these freedoms include: The mode and extent of the sacrifices, the presentation of Mayan villagers as isolated individuals living in the forest, the compression time of the classical era terminal highly urbanized and the post-classical late mainly composed Housing Village .

Also very critical about the violence of the film, Marie-Charlotte Arnauld, Director of Research at CNRS, Mayanists archaeologist in the lab "Archeology of the Americas," says that "The film is based on some documentation. I was not overly shocked by the reconstitution .

Finally, the encounter with the Spanish missionaries in the last five minutes of the film while the latter have reached the continent 300 years after the abandonment of the last great Mayan cities.

References