Apocalypto Tugs At The Ol' Heart

There have been rumours circulating around the Internet on certain sites that Mel Gibsons movie Apocalypto might in fact have been stolen from another movie, copywrighted in 2003, called "Michtoatl". I have no way as of yet of verifying the veracity of these claims, so other than making note of them here, I will for the time being ignore them.

As for the movie itself, "Apocalypto" is a film that can't be ignored. It may be one of the, if not THE, movie event of the year. There has been so much buzz and controversy concerning it, I thought I should say that, if you do go to see it, be warned. It is by all accounts extremely bloody and violent. I have not seen it, but for what I have to say, that is not a requirement. This is not a review of the film as such, so much as it is a review of the reviews.

And of the Maya-

Sometime roughly between the time of the discovery of fire, and the invention of the wheel, human beings migrated, in uncertain numbers, into the Western Hemisphere, more than likely from northern Asia by way of the then frozen Bering Strait. Nobody seems to have a clue as to why, though it would seem likely to me some kind of environmental upheaval to be the most likely culprit. It does take an act of desperation, after all, to move massive amounts of people thousands of miles over frozen ice, and land.

Eventually, though, they made it to first North America, and from there, presumably, some of them made it to Mexico, and beyond.

Some of them carved out impressive civilizations. The first of these known were the Olmecs. The Maya followed. They were superseded by the Toltecs, and finally the Aztecs. There were others as well, though the Incas, of Peru, seem to have been pretty much isolated from the other more advanced Meso-American civilizations.

Thy seem to have been amazingly advanced in some respects, insofar as architecture, mathematics, arts, scultpture, and to a degree even poetry and written languages. The Maya, specifically, developed a calendar system that seems to have been based on the period of time from the first missed menstrual period of a pregnant woman, until the birth of the child. The end of the next period of the Mayan calendar, which has been the object of some speculation, is to come on Decmeber 21^st, 2012.

Yet, this seems to not have anything to do with the winter solstice, which in this year transpires on the following day, but is simply the end of a long count, the thirteenth cycle of the Mayan calendar. It is supposed to usher in the end of the old world, and a new beginning.

Despite the fact that they had cities that were seemingly unimagined by their North American distant relatives, they were as bloody and violent a lot as you can imagine, and a look at Meso-American civilizations might well be a mirror of not just that culture, but a fairly accurrate portrayal of human beings before the dawn of recorded history.

Despite their advances, and even despite their obsessive observations of the sun and moon, the concept of the wheel totally escaped the grasp of their limited imaginations. Because of this, as well as due to a lack of the most rudimentary of implemets, such as the pulley, great architectural undertakings necessitated the use of massive amounts of the population pressed into gruelling, backbreaking hours of labor.

Naturally, this would require conquest of neighboring peoples, as no civilian population would long put up with this from their own rulers. Nor would the conquered people, for long, unless a serious impression was made. To this end, the Maya, as well as the other great Meso-American civilizations, conducted human sacrifice on a most grissly, barbaric scale.

In his movie about the final days of the Mayan Empire, Mel Gibson certainly got that right. In fact, despite the numerous protests that I‘ve read about the excesive blood-letting in this film, he may have barely touched the surface as to how blood-thirsty the Maya were. But that is not unusual. From the earliest days of Meso-American studies, anthropologists and archaeologists were so impressed with the high degree of advancements evidenced by what remained of the Mayan architecture, they came to the erroneous conclusion that they were a very peaceful, even serene people, at least in comparison to the unmistakably sanguinary Aztecs.

When the truth began to emerge, it was met with denial, and caution was advised in interpreting the painted scenes uncovered of massive bloodletting and sacrifices. But the more evidence that emerged into the light of day, the more it became obvious that this was a people unique in it’s savagery and cruelty.

Where Gibson got it wrong, in my opinion, was in assumming that the violence witnessed during the last days of the Mayan Empire was a result of some kind of corruption that had permeated society. In fact, from what I have seen, the more accurrate explanation was that the society in fact never evolved beyond it’s beginnings in this regard. There was a continuity, in fact, that speaks more of cultural stagnation. The "corruption" had always been there. To the Maya,though, it was the natural order of things, and always had been.

I will however jump to Gibsons defense in one regard. He has been critiized for not focusing on the very real cultural achievements of the Maya, in terms of what I have mentioned as regards the archietecture, science, mathematics, astronomy, and their amazingly accurrate calendar system.

The first point I will make in response to this is to note that this movie is actually portrayed as seen through the eyes of a man, Jaquar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) who is the member of a small subordinate village that is suppossed to have existed somewhere apparrently on the outer fringes of the Mayan Empire. To someone such as that, beaten and hauled into the midst of a giant city in order to be a part of a massive human sacrifice, the first and last thing of note that would command his attention would have been the hugely magnificent pyramid that stood in the center of the city.

The next thing he would take note of would be the human heads that would then come bounding down the steps of the pyramid, bouncing like a grotesque, bloody ball, as the deranged populace gleefully rushed to the foot of the steps and cried out for more.

He may have been somewhat amazed, as well as sickened, at the site of the High Priest extracting a still beating heart from the chest of another sacrificial victim, holding it up for the crowd to survey, before his head as well was sent careening down the steps of the pyramid.

He would have wondered when his time would come, as he dreaded the agony and the pain, heartsick at the thought of never seeing the wife and child he had hidden away, ever again.

Even if he had noticed one, he would not have asked,“So, how does this calendar thing work?”

Another point that should be made, which seems to escape most reviewers-or for that matter most students of Mayan history-is that the average Mayan was not well versed on these matters. They lived in the culture, were surrounded by it, and so of course influenced by it. But the average Mayan man or woman would have had about as much depth of knowledge concerning architecture and mathematics, etc., as I would have about nuclear physics.

The Maya did have compulsory education from about the age of fourteen, or at least did at some point in their history, but for the most part this was limited to languages and poetry and military matters, for the boys, and household duties and religious matters for the girls. A relatively few proved good candidates for specialized education in the higher arts and sciences, but they were in the minority. Therefore, the highly advanced Mayan culture would not have been focused in the life of the average Mayan, who probably never gave the pyramids a second look or thought. They were just there, much like in the movie.

Another criticism of the work has been that the human sacrifices that are portrayed are not presented “in context”.

In context? What fucking context? Please! Massive human sacrifices can only be seen in one context, and that is, it is a barbaric act of subjugation of a population and/or propitiation of some malignant deity. That is the fucking context. Stop trying to avoid offending the Maya. They aren’t around any more as an empire, they aren’t going to get us. What few remote jungle tribes of them that are still around aren’t going to like you or give a shit one way or another if you defend them. And most other South American Indians and North American Indians-or “Native Americans” if you prefer-don’t really give a shit either, though a relatively few of them might pretend they do. That’s probably because they are looking forward to the day they might have your head on a pike. But I digress.

It’s been said that Mel Gibson intended this film as a parable of how corruption in a society will always inevitaly lead to it’s downfall, and that he has drawn a parallel to the Mayan leaders hold on their native populations, and how they manipulated them by focusing their attention on the entertainment value of lopped off heads and yanked out hearts, to our current American society, and how we have been manipulated by our own leaders. How we are encouraged to continue to live our life of abundant hedonism and place our trust in the government for our safey and security, in the meantime throwing our rights and responsibilities to future generations away.

At the movies end, a number of Spanish conquistadors and missionaries are seen approaching the shore, and we know the end is near for the Maya. As they were of course Catholic, as is Mel Gibson, what I can’t help but wonder is, is this a threat or a promise?

Whaever the case, Gibsons point about societal corruption is well noted. I just wish he could have gotten the point across that this civilization was always corrupt, that despite it’s obvious advances, it was a brutal, barbaric society of people who were always ruled by their superstions and manipulated by their rulers. That this was as true of the beginning days of their empire as it was in the latter days of it.

When you stop to think about it, they were more like us than we might care to admit.