The movie Apocalypto, directed by Mel Gibson, is a depiction of Mayan life and struggles. Though, this is not a true story by any means at all. Many historian and scholars that saw the movie can prove much of it is not true. There is some deep underlying true in some small scenes but they are over shadowed by the gigantic fiction of Gibson view.
The story of Apocalypto is about a struggle for a Mayan to return home. It starts with the capture of main character, Jaguar Paw. He is stuck unable to help as he and his family is taken away to an Aztec city to be sacrificed or sold to trade. Later Jaguar Paw escapes and the movie turns in to a survival struggle of one man verses a group of men. This concludes with Jaguar Paw saving his pregnant wife and son and killing off most of the group of men.
Most critics for the movie industry believe this was Gibson's best movie. It was nominated by the famous award ceremonies such as Oscars, Golden Globes, and the Critics Choice Award. They believe this is a great depiction of the the Mayan life styles. Critics think the civilization as an exciting cannibal culture:
But the film radiates a kind of electric, shamanic craziness. From the first scene, showing a tapir being brutally killed and eaten, right up to the fantastic denouement, Apocalypto never lets up: a riveting tale of proud tribesmen being captured by a brutally efficient slavemaster attack-squad, then tied up and led to the capital: fresh meat for the 24/7 human sacrifice operation with its continuous waterfall of blood, maintained by a desperate oligarchy in order to propitiate the angry gods who are spoiling their crops. (Bradshaw).
This is a perfect reason how the movie portrays a bad idea. It is giving off the idea that the Mayans and Aztecs were crazy, blood thirsty, primitive men and their only goal was to spill as much blood possible. This couldn't have been so wrong. First the Mayans and Aztecs used blood to worship. They believe blood was a portal to the deceased and to their gods so they would never just kill someone without using them and their parts to please their gods. They did use captured people to sacrifice. Though the movie shows lot of people getting decapitated but was more common for captured kings and not common people (Demarest 191).
This was more popular with the Mayans. The Aztecs would murder mass quantities of people to please their gods. They also would capture people from the surrounding area and war prisoners to scarify but some say “There's no evidence that innocent women and men were harvested from the hinterlands and sold into slavery or to provide flesh for sacrifice. Generally captives appear to have been taken during war between polities” (Lovgren). It can be assumed that it wasn't too common for gangs of Aztecs to go out and find people in the jungle to scarify them.
Apocalypto is giving this idea of primitive. The Mayan culture was really advance during this time period. They were able to predict events such as eclipses and had a calendar. Does this sounds like a civilization that didn't know what it was doing? They weren't just some tribe out in the middle of the woods. Most scolars believe in this time that:
“During Classic times the Maya were an agricultural people. They hunted, but wild game was a relatively small percentage of the diet, and meat in general may have been seen as more of a luxury item. At that time, it appears that almost all the forest was maintained, manicured, and owned by somebody, and [the fact] that you have a Maya group [in Apocalypto] that doesn't practice agriculture is virtually impossible.
This shows that Mayans were intellectual people. They knew how to used tools and solve problems. They didn't just live in the middle of nowhere always having to fight to survive. They were farmers. They own huge amounts of land. They wouldn't didn't just track down their food to eat instead they grew it. A Mayan hunt wasn't just a stick hut. It had some structural strength. Their huts have said to of been, “Although houses may have been of perishable materials, they had stone foundations and were often built in cleared plazas but certainly not in the wild jungle” (Lovgren). The house would have looked a lot different than in the movie. Instead of this jungle atmosphere it would have been more open and friendly. A typical idea of how a yard and house should look with garden and open area.
Though this movie portrayed a idea of the Mayan idea. It did more damage than help their cause. It showed a typical western idea of the Mayan and Aztec idea. It showed that they were a primitive and horrible people. This couldn't have been so untrue. Their cultures were advance and did a lot of great things. From this movie, try not to believe too much of it. Instead do your own research and find out the truth of such a great culture.
You put Gibson\'s movie down on entirely specious grounds. You make a big deal of the Maya being farmers, then complain that the individual at the heart of the story is not shown farming. Is it your belief that farmers here in the USA are \"farming\" 24/7? Tilling the soil from sunup to sundown? Do you beieve that a snapshot of their lives will never show them doing un-farmerly things? Like hunting? Fishing?
Know many farmers?
Common estimates based upon contemporary research runs 20,000 victims annually. That\'s a large demand for a continuing supply of fresh bodies. Gibson may have some of the details wrong, but the story he presents very effectively portrays one very plausible way it might have happened. That all any film that portrays an era incompletely documented can do.
Face it. The defining characteristic of a society that annually uses the blood of tens of thousands of unwilling donors, is brutality. Hitler and his merry men had their own refined characteristics, but ask any Jew, they will tell you what the defining characteristic of Nazi society was,and it was not opera.
Only a total nitwit would take the tack you did. You seem to be determined to demonstrate the validity of the maxim that \'tis better to be thought a fool than to open one\'s mouth and remove all doubt.
You haven\'t said anything significant against Gibson\'s portrayal that is based upon undisputed fact. Ergo, your view, no matter how passionately you hold it, has not a scintilla more validity than Gibson\'s. The simple truth, in so far as it can be known or postulated, is that large numbers of the society lived outside the cities, (which translates into \"in the forest\"), as the protatanist is shown. How well the forest is manicured is not relevant to the story at all.
I was struck by how accurately Gibson portrayed the nity-grity interacton between hunter and hunted, and how quickly and unpredicably the roles can be reversed. I reckon you\'ve never hunted, and that you\'ve never been in harm\'s way. It shows.
Your post is simply a cry to \"look at me, I\'ve read some books and can use the author\'s name.\" OK, I did. I decided to join the multitudes of children standing on the side of the street, pointing their fingers at you and laughing.