Apocalypto

Praise be iPlayer; I caught up with Apocalypto a couple of days after what I believe was its terrestrial premiere in the UK. I'd been meaning to see it for a while. It's not every film that claims to use the original dialect of its characters. Here it's a form of Mayan spoken by all the characters. Perhaps this was last seen to any affect in The Passion of the Christ, where dialogue was conducting exclusively in Latin and Aramaic. Of course, both films were directed by Mel Gibson too.


The collapse of a Southern American civilisation is portended not only by exterior threat, but by disease and infighting tearing it apart from within. Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), a young hunter who lives a peaceful existence with family and friends in a remote village, is kidnapped and taken to a city to be sacrificed. A solar eclipse saves him sacrifice and then a lucky escape sees him flee back into the jungle. Yet his captors decide his escape is not permissable. He is hunted mercilessly until it becomes a battle between prey and predator to decide his fate. 


Youngblood's performance seem to me to be emblematic of the greater faults and successes of Apocalypto. While Jaguar Paw remains innocent and fearful, he was all wide-eyed and slow to comprehend his circumstances. The drama seemed to stretch out interminably ahead of me. Even the moments when I expected some cinematic relief, such as the cliffside drama of the captives or their arrival into the Mayan city, were strangely stripped down and limited. Where Gibson had the opportunity to do some panoramic shots of the city, for instance, we instead were left with all the footage entirely from the point of view of the captives. It was all close-ups and restricted views. We weren't given a chance to have a sense of the scale of the place, to feel the awe that we were meant to see mirrored in the captives' faces. 


Yet when Jaguar Paw finally began to take his circumstances into his own hands, doing away with fear as his father advised and fighting for his freedom and safety, the film itself seemed to pick up too. Where hunt scenes at the start of the film had been tedious and un-engaging, now Jaguar Paw caught my attention and the story seemed to jolt from first to fifth gear in a few mere moments. On the clock, where before I had worried I'd not make it through the second half, now were only a brief chunk of minutes left. The end was in sight!


The other disappointing detail was that Blunted (Jonathan Brewer), another villager regularly mocked by the rest, was in many ways a more interesting and entertaining character than the rather straight hero, Jaguar Paw. Blunted, despite being physically imposing, has trouble getting his wife pregnant. As such he is the laughing stock of the village. Yet his bravery and compassion are just as moving, if not more so, than Jaguar Paw. He represents a harder line than Jaguar Paw, more quick to judge the ills of others and more aware of the realism of a tough existence. It was a shame he was not afforded a larger role in the drama, as throughout I found his character to be more watchable.


It's also a shame that this film really just sits as standard historical blockbuster fare. So much more could have been done with scope and range, with a storyline that engaged more or characterisations that gave the viewer more to care about. But it rests as a rather insipid affair, all told. At least, it does not quite take off in the way that it could, despite great costuming and attention to detail, and, of course, the excellent choice of using native language to offer that extra chance for audience immersion.


~~~
2006
Rudy Youngblood, Jonathan Brewer
dir. Mel Gibson