Apocalypto, 2006, directed by…
Ah. Mel Gibson.
Apocalypto is a film about the Mayan collapse, which happened by 900 A.D, and went to painstaking detail to show this. The film shows the famine surrounding the collapse, with barren fields and dying crops, due to the Mayans expanding too fast, cutting down too many trees for their cities and ruining their soil for crops.
But nevertheless, the film opens showing a hunter-gatherer tribe in the jungle.
Okayyyyyy…
They look Mayan I suppose, and they are a hunter-gatherer tribe, so I suppose this could be an accurate look? Right let’s move on and say they look Mayan.
Mel Gibson even had the actors speak Yucatec Mayan, so props to him.
Their village is raided and a lot of inhabitants captured, and are set off on a journey across Mayan land to get to a Mayan city. The journey takes about two days to get to the city, which isn’t that much of a problem I suppose, it’s accurate.
The problems arise on the way.
So as they are on their merry travels, they come across an infected girl, crying over her mother, who died of an infection that results in blisters all across the body. The girl has this unknown disease too. Don’t hang around infected dead bodies kids.
Hold on. What are those blisters?
They look quite similar to smallpox blisters.
Obviously, the boy in the picture has a very bad case of it, and far more than the girl does. But nonetheless, that looks like smallpox, right? In fact, let’s look at her mother.
It is smallpox. It’s fucking smallpox.
That disease that the conquistadors brought with them that decimated native populations as they had never encountered it before and thus had no resistance against it?
But…the Christopher Columbus first arrived in 1492…
The Mayan collapse happened before 900 A.D.
Are you shitting me?
*Gibson giggling…Gibbling?*
So as the captives are taken to the Mayan city…finally. It looks good.
It looks good. There’s lime quarrying on the outskirts, which the process to make was one of the prime reasons to the collapse, at least in cities. The women look accurate, with absolutely bonkers hair.
It’s good. The pyramids are accurate, the industry, trade and general hustle and bustle is accurate. It’s very good. Mr Gibson, you’ve outdone yourself here.
Then we get to the sacrifice bit. The captives are dragged to the top of the pyramid, laid over an altar, have their heart extracted and are beheaded.
Isn’t that technique borrowed from the Aztec’s…who aren’t around yet?
Mayans preferred decapitation or non-lethal bloodletting. They wouldn’t learn the extracting the heart technique for a few hundred years.
Plus, that’s a hell of a lot of people they’re killing? There’s piles on piles of bodies at the base of the pyramid, far more than the Mayan’s would sacrifice. Wow. There’s even a mass grave later in the film. Full to the brim of bodies. The Mayan’s wouldn’t sacrfice that many at one time.
Nevertheless, the main character is saved by a timely solar eclipse, suggesting to the Mayans that their gods are appeased and no more sacrifices are needed.
Okay this is good. The Mayan leaders would control the populace through their religion, manipulating them and using their knowledge of solar eclipses to suggest when their gods are happy or unhappy, essentially, and what the populace should do about it. They were good astronomers, so when in the movie, the priest smiles at the king, it shows they knew the eclipse was going to happen. Good. Very good Mr Gibson.
The Mayans decide to spare the rest of the prisoners being sacrifices and instead decide to use them as target practice. Nothing wrong here. The main character kills the main bad guy’s son and runs into the forest.
The last half hour or so is a huge chase, with the main character using tricks like tree frog venom on blow darts etc until…until…
*More gibbling…almost maniacal*
There are…things in the background.
No.
Please Gibson.
Please.
I can’t think of a single explanation. The chase took 600 years? The journey did? They’re time travelling conquistadors? The film follows generations of one family, the main character being identical every generation?
I…can’t think of anything more broken.
So if the conquistadors are only just arriving (the characters have clearly never seen anything like this before) how did that girl get smallpox? It’s still the Mayan collapse right? It can’t be. What fucking year is this Gibson? What is this?!
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