Apocalypto

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Tapir's testicle, anyone? They're not quite the delicacy the playful warriors claim as they tease one of their pals, but it's illustrative of the nature of the relationship between these young Mayan tribesmen who, thus far, have found their greatest fear emanating from a menacing mother-in-law who is demanding that she gets grandchildren. That all changes when a more dominant war party arrive looking for sacrifices. The shrewd "Jaguar Paw" (Rudy Youngblood) manages to hide his expectant wife and their child in a deep pit, but he is himself taken prisoner by "Zero Wolf" (Raoul Max Trujillo) and removed to the capital - after witnessing his father's slaughter at the hands of "Middle Eye" (Gerarardo Taracena). Once there, in this sight of an almost complete pyramid, they are to be offered to their great god Kulkulkan. It's as if by a divine intervention that this young man is spared, but that mercy is short lived as he merely now becomes the plaything of the warriors. They have one chance of escape, but that only earns him the furious enmity of the powerful 'Zero Wolf" and soon one hell of a cat and mouse game ensues. The photography really does capture the density of the Mexican forests and the Mel Gibson's direction the gruesome and gruelling lives of the young men who lived and died at the behest of the priests. What we are also exposed to is a civilisation teetering on the edge. Disease is rife - hardly surprising when we see the sheer volume of corpses lying around, and amidst all this desperation some of the dialogue is rousing, powerful and sometime quite relaxed too. Many of the actors are genuine tribesmen and some deliver some more than incidental parts quite well, but it's Youngblood, Trujillo and perhaps best of all - Taracena, who make this a grudge match well worth watching. It's sumptuous, this film. Gritty, bloody, violent - but sumptuous. Well worth a watch, and a big screen does great justice to the super cinematography.

Let's be honest, almost all of the 1 star reviews are because of how the Mayan's are depicted and stem from a lack of historical knoweldge. There seems to be the misconception that the Mayans were peaceful and didn't sacrifice humans... which reminds me of when my wife and I went to visit her family in Guatemala where the high point was really watching the American tourists swim in pools of water that probably had the bodies of thousands of sacrificial victims at the bottom... mostly 14 year-old boys. Yeah, no way I would get in that water, but then I know what's beneath it. Apocaypto is kind of about that... but it doesn't really convey the fact that, like the rest of Central and South America the sacrifice was to prevent the end of the world... and this kind of makes it about drought (which hit about the time they made contact with the west) And it really doesn't convey the culture very well... but it does seem to zero in on the point that it wasn't their own people they were sacrificing, it was the people removed from the cities, the people that fell under the Mayan Empire, but weren't exactly a part of it... ... which is what the Aztecs did too. But, who cares, in the end it's a brutal fight for survival, and it's an entertaining one.

I don't know if there is a better example of dedication in filmmaking out there than there is in _Apocalypto_. Brilliant, if overrated. _Final rating:★★★ - I personally recommend you give it a go._