OVP: Apocalypto (2006)

Film: Apocalypto (2006)
Stars: Rudy Youngblood, Dalia Hernandez, Raoul Trujillo, Gerardo Taracena, Morris Birdyellowhead
Director: Mel Gibson
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Makeup)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Does anyone else remember when Apocalypto was being advertised for the first time?  How the trailers for it seemed confusing, as if Gibson wasn't willing to give any of the plot to the film?  It's weird to revisit this, and remember that at the time it was A) a big hit and B) Gibson was still a filmmaker who could command major box office (this was his followup to the gargantuan haul of The Passion).  Gibson, of course, has had a lifetime's worth of career problems in the years since, cancelled repeatedly (but still managed to get a Best Director Oscar nomination in the meantime-go figure), so revisiting him comes with a gigantic amount of baggage we might have had hints of in 2006, but would soon become central to his public persona.  Gibson doesn't appear in the movie (he hasn't appeared in one of his directorial efforts since Braveheart), but his fingerprints are all over it as you'll see below.

(Spoilers Ahead)  Apocalypto takes place during the Mayan empire, and is about one man, Jaguar Paw (Youngblood) who sees his entire tribe raped, destroyed, imprisoned, and murdered by a stronger tribe.  The captives are taken to a large city, though along the journey we see terrifying cliffs & a diseased girl who curses Zero Wolf (Trujillo), the leader of the tribe that imprisoned Jaguar Paw's people.  In the city, the women are sold into slavery, and the men are sacrificed on a bloody alter to the sun, though when Jaguar Paw is to be killed, a solar eclipse occurs, which stops him from being sacrificed.  Instead, he and the remaining men are used for target practice, and in the process Jaguar Paw escapes, headed back to his wife & son whom he left in a pit during the raid.  He is tracked as he goes back, but through ingenuity kills them by knowing the jungle better.  The climactic scene of the film, though, happens later when Gibson throws a curveball at the audience.

Before we discuss that scene, I want to talk through what we've seen already.  Apocalypto is the sort of movie that I would never watch again, even if I didn't hate it.  The film's acting is okay (too much two-dimensional emoting, especially from the villains), but the action sequences are impressively mounted, and Gibson definitely knows how to use every dollar in his budget by overcrowding and extending key shots in the film.  The movie, though, is upsettingly, nauseatingly violent.  This is the problem with all of Gibson's films post-Braveheart, where he is obsessed with human suffering onscreen.  He knows how to lens and construct a movie-his films, while basic in plot, make sense and this isn't just a cascade of fight scenes, but they're so gross to watch as they are just too indulgent in the human suffering angle, and I can only stomach so much of that, particularly when the film seems to be celebrating the violence.  The sound work here makes sense (it's the kind of film that would get nominated), but it's not impressive.  The mixing doesn't work for me-some of the dialogue is muffled in the crowd scenes to the point where it's difficult to hear, an unforgivable sin unless it's a key part of the plot, but the editing is better than the mixing (particularly during the marketplace scene).  The makeup might be realistic, but if the actual work is taking me out of the picture repeatedly, I'm not here for it.

That said, Apocalypto has one really unbelievable scene at the end of the movie that almost makes up for the rest of the picture.  Jaguar Paw is being chased by two more men in Zero Wolf's tribe, the last two, and as he keeps running he suddenly leaves the jungle, the first time we've really done that other than the scenes in the city.  Exhausted after having killed so many men, he collapses on the beach...and looks up in seeming shock.  The two men who are chasing him easily catch up, but also give up on their chase & look up at what Jaguar Paw is staring at.  In a great tracking shot, we see Spanish conquistadors on row boats, and in the distance billowy sales.  Jaguar Paw leaves to save his wife, while the other two men, so blown away by what is happening, forget their chase and just stare on into the suddenly populated sea.

This feels like the kind of shot that you'd want to build a movie around, and it almost makes Gibson's movie, had it not been for the abject violence of the first 90% of the movie, worth it.  It's a testament to how immersive Gibson makes the film that we don't see what is in hindsight an obvious twist coming, and the way that it's filmed, with the actors reacting in the same we would if we found aliens in our front yard (not in initial horror, but in sheer, utter shock) is smart.  It's a great scene buried in a paltry movie.