Apocalypto

Apocalypto (/əˌpɒkəˈlɪptoʊ/) is a 2006 epic historical action-adventure film produced and directed by Mel Gibson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Farhad Safinia. The film features a cast of Indigenous and Mexican actors consisting of Rudy Youngblood, Raoul Trujillo, Mayra Sérbulo, Dalia Hernández, Gerardo Taracena, Jonathan Brewer, Rodolfo Palacios, Bernardo Ruiz Juarez, Ammel Rodrigo Mendoza, Ricardo Diaz Mendoza, and Israel Contreras. Set in Yucatán around the year 1502, Apocalypto portrays the hero's journey of a young man named Jaguar Paw, a late Mesoamerican hunter and his fellow tribesmen who are captured by an invading force. After a raid on their village, they are brought on a perilous journey to a Maya city for human sacrifice at a time when the Maya civilization is in decline.
Principal photography took place in Mexico from 21 November 2005 to July 2006. All of the indigenous people depicted in the film were Maya. Additionally, all dialogue is in a modern approximation of the ancient language of the setting, and the Indigenous Yucatec Mayan language is spoken with subtitles, which sometimes refer to the language as Mayan.
Apocalypto was distributed by Buena Vista Pictures in North America and Icon Film Distribution in the United Kingdom and Australia. The film was a box office success, grossing over $120 million worldwide, and received generally positive reviews, with critics praising Gibson's direction, Dean Semler's cinematography, and the performances of the cast, though the portrayal of Maya civilization and perceived historical inaccuracies were criticized.
While hunting in the Mesoamerican rainforest, Jaguar Paw, his father Flint Sky, and their fellow tribesmen encounter a group of refugees fleeing from war and devastation. Returning to their village, Flint Sky notes that the refugees are sick with fear and urges Jaguar Paw to never allow fear to infect him. Later that night, the tribe gathers around an elder who tells a prophetic story about a being who is consumed by an emptiness that cannot be satisfied, despite having all the gifts of the world offered to him. The being will continue blindly taking until there is nothing left in the world for him to take, and the world is no more.
The next morning, the village is attacked by Maya raiders led by Zero Wolf, and many are killed, including Flint Sky, who is killed by the sadistic raider Middle Eye. During the attack, Jaguar Paw hides both his pregnant wife Seven and their young son Turtles Run in an empty well before he is captured. Before the raiders leave one of them notices the rope leading down to the well and cuts it. In the aftermath, the raiders round up the surviving adults who are forced on a long march through the jungle, while the children are left to fend for themselves. Meanwhile, Seven and Turtles Run remain trapped in the well and they struggle to escape it.
Along the way, the raiders and their captives encounter razed forests and vast fields of failed maize crops, alongside villages decimated by an unknown disease. They then encounter an infected little girl who prophesies the end of the Maya world. Arriving in the city, the captives are divided; the women are sold into slavery while the men are escorted to the top of a pyramid where they are brutally sacrificed to appease the gods. As Jaguar Paw is laid out on the altar, a solar eclipse occurs and the Maya take the event as an omen that the gods are satisfied, thereby sparing the remaining captives. However, the remaining captives are taken by the raiders to their barracks to be used as target practice; the raiders offer them freedom if they can dodge the missiles thrown at them, while Zero Wolf's son Cut Rock finishes off the wounded. The first pair of runners, including Jaguar Paw's friend Blunted, are easily struck down. Jaguar Paw follows thereafter, and is also wounded, drawing the attention of Cut Rock. However, Cut Rock is then distracted by the mortally wounded Blunted, whose sacrifice allows Jaguar Paw to kill Cut Rock and escape.
An enraged Zero Wolf leads eight of his men to hunt down Jaguar Paw. Reaching the jungle, Jaguar Paw remembers his father's words not to give in to fear, and challenges Zero Wolf to hunt him. Jaguar Paw uses his knowledge of the forest to survive while his pursuers are killed off one by one (one is killed by a jaguar; a second is killed by a snake; a third is killed by Zero Wolf; a fourth drowns in a waterfall; a fifth is poisoned by Jaguar Paw). Among those he kills himself are Middle Eye, whom he bludgeons with a stone hatchet, and Zero Wolf, whom he lures into a spike trap made for tapir hunts. The last two raiders continue to pursue Jaguar Paw on the outskirts of his village. Reaching the shores amidst a heavy downpour, all three are stunned to witness the arrival of Spanish conquistadors. While the two raiders approach the foreigners, Jaguar Paw races back to his village and rescues his family from drowning by the downpour. Jaguar Paw is also overjoyed to see his infant son who was born underwater.
Later, the reunited family gazes at the Spanish ships. Jaguar Paw chooses not to approach the foreigners, and he and his family depart to start a new life in the forest away from both the Maya and the Spanish.
Screenwriter and co-producer Farhad Safinia first met Mel Gibson while working as an assistant during the post-production of The Passion of the Christ. Eventually, Gibson and Safinia found time to discuss "their mutual love of movies and what excites them about moviemaking".
Gibson said they wanted to "shake up the stale action-adventure genre", which he felt was dominated by CGI, stock stories and shallow characters and to create a footchase that would "feel like a car chase that just keeps turning the screws."
Gibson and Safinia were also interested in portraying and exploring an ancient culture as it existed before the arrival of the Europeans. Considering both the Aztecs and the Maya, they eventually chose the Maya for their high sophistication and their eventual decline.
The two researched ancient Maya history, reading both creation and destruction myths, including sacred texts such as the Popul Vuh. In the audio commentary of the film's first DVD release, Safinia states that the old shaman's story (played by Espiridion Acosta Cache, a modern-day Maya storyteller) was modified from an authentic Mesoamerican tale that was re-translated by Hilario Chi Canul, a professor of Maya, into the Yucatec Maya language for the film. He also served as a dialogue coach during production. As they researched the script, Safinia and Gibson traveled to Guatemala, Costa Rica and the Yucatán Peninsula to scout filming locations and visit Maya ruins.
Striving for a degree of historical accuracy, the filmmakers employed a consultant, Richard D. Hansen, a specialist in the Maya and assistant professor of archaeology at Idaho State University. As director of the Mirador Basin Project, he works to preserve a large swath of the Guatemalan rain forest and its Maya ruins. Gibson has said of Hansen's involvement: "Richard's enthusiasm for what he does is infectious. He was able to reassure us and make us feel secure that what we were writing had some authenticity as well as imagination."
Other scholars of Mesoamerican history criticized the film for what they said were numerous inaccuracies. Hansen published an essay on the film and a critical commentary on the criticisms of the film.
Gibson decided that all the dialogue would be in the Yucatec Maya language. Gibson explained:
The production team consisted of a large group of make-up artists and costume designers who worked to recreate the Maya look for the large cast. Led by Aldo Signoretti, the make-up artists daily applied the required tattoos, scarification, and earlobe extensions to all of the on-screen actors. According to advisor Richard D. Hansen, the choices in body make-up were based on both artistic license and fact:
An example of attention to detail is the left arm tattoo of Seven, Jaguar Paw's wife, which is a horizontal band with two dots above – the Maya glyph for the number seven.
Simon Atherton, an English armorer and weapon-maker who worked with Gibson on Braveheart, was hired to research and provide reconstructions of Maya weapons. Atherton also has a cameo as the cross-bearing Franciscan friar who appears on a Spanish ship at the end of the film.
Mel Gibson wanted Apocalypto to feature sets with buildings rather than relying on computer-generated images. Most of the step pyramids seen at the Maya city were models designed by Thomas E. Sanders. Sanders explained his approach:
However, while many of the architectural details of the Mayan cities are correct, they are blended from different locations and eras, a decision Farhad Safinia said was made for aesthetic reasons. While Apocalypto is set during the terminal Postclassic period of Mayan civilization, the film's central pyramid is a structure built in the classic period, six hundred years earlier. It is a later Mayan city built around a pyramid that had been erected centuries before, examples of which are found in places such as the Postclassic sites of Muyil, Coba, and others in Quintana Roo, Mexico. The temples are in the shape of those of Tikal in the central lowlands classic style but decorated with the Puuc style elements of the northwest Yucatán centuries later. Richard D. Hansen comments, "There was nothing in the post-classic period that would match the size and majesty of that pyramid in the film. But Gibson ... was trying to depict opulence, wealth, consumption of resources." The mural in the arched walkway combined elements from the Maya codices, the Bonampak murals (over 700 years earlier than the film's setting), and the San Bartolo murals (some 1500 years earlier than the film's setting).
Gibson filmed Apocalypto mainly in Catemaco, San Andrés Tuxtla and Paso de Ovejas in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The waterfall scene was filmed at Eyipantla Falls, located in San Andrés Tuxtla. Other filming by second-unit crews took place in El Petén, Guatemala. The film was originally slated for an August 4, 2006, release, but Touchstone Pictures delayed the release date to December 8, 2006, due to heavy rains and two hurricanes interfering with filming in Mexico. Principal photography ended in July 2006.
Apocalypto was shot on high-definition digital video, using the Panavision Genesis camera. During filming, Gibson and cinematographer Dean Semler employed Spydercam, a suspended camera system allowing shooting from above. This equipment was used in a scene in which Jaguar Paw leaps off a waterfall.
A number of animals are featured in Apocalypto, including a Baird's tapir and a black jaguar. Animatronics or puppets were employed for the scenes injurious to animals.
The music to Apocalypto was composed by James Horner in his third collaboration with director Mel Gibson. The non-traditional score features a large array of exotic instruments and vocals by Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan.
While Mel Gibson financed the film through his Icon Productions, Disney signed on to distribute Apocalypto for a fee in certain markets under the Touchstone Pictures label in North America, and Icon Film Distribution in the United Kingdom and Australia. The publicity for the film started with a December 2005 teaser trailer that was filmed before the start of principal photography and before Rudy Youngblood was cast as Jaguar Paw. As a joke, Gibson inserted a subliminal cameo of the bearded director in a plaid shirt with a cigarette hanging from his mouth posing next to a group of dust-covered Maya. A clean-shaven Gibson also filmed a Mayan-language segment for the introduction of the 2006 Academy Awards in which he declined to host the ceremony.
On September 23, 2006, Gibson pre-screened the unfinished film to two predominantly Native American audiences in the US state of Oklahoma, at the Riverwind Casino in Goldsby, owned by the Chickasaw Nation, and at Cameron University in Lawton. He also commenced a pre-screening in Austin, Texas, on September 24 in conjunction with one of the film's stars, Rudy Youngblood. In Los Angeles, Gibson screened Apocalypto and participated in a Q&A session for Latin Business Association and for members of the Maya community. Due to an enthusiastic response from exhibitors, Disney opened the film on more than 2,500 screens in the United States.
According to Mel Gibson, the Maya setting of Apocalypto is "merely the backdrop" for a more universal story of exploring "civilizations and what undermines them". The filmmakers intended for the collapse of Maya to mirror issues seen in contemporary society. The problems "faced by the Maya are extraordinarily similar to those faced today by our own civilization," co-writer Safinia stated during production, "especially when it comes to widespread environmental degradation, excessive consumption and political corruption". Gibson has stated that the film is an attempt at illustrating the parallels between a great fallen empire of the past and the great empires of today.
The film serves as a cultural critique – in Hansen's words, a "social statement" – sending the message that it is never a mistake to question our own assumptions about morality. Gibson has defined the title, based on Greek word (ἀποκαλύπτω, apokaluptō), as "a new beginning or an unveiling – a revelation...Everything has a beginning and an end, and all civilizations have operated like that".
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 65% based on 202 reviews, with an average rating of 6.40/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Apocalypto is a brilliantly filmed, if mercilessly bloody, examination of a once great civilization." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
Richard Roeper and guest critic Aisha Tyler on the television show Ebert & Roeper gave it "two thumbs up" rating. Michael Medved gave Apocalypto four out of four stars calling the film "an adrenaline-drenched chase movie" and "a visceral visual experience."
The film was released less than six months after Gibson's 2006 DUI incident, which garnered Gibson much negative publicity and magnified concerns some had over alleged antisemitism in his previous film, The Passion of the Christ. Several key film critics alluded to the incident in their reviews of Apocalypto. In his positive review for The New York Times, A. O. Scott commented: "say what you will about him – about his problem with booze or his problem with Jews – he is a serious filmmaker." The Boston Globe's review came to a similar conclusion, noting: "Gibson may be a lunatic, but he's our lunatic, and while I wouldn't wish him behind the wheel of a car after happy hour or at a B'nai Brith function anytime, behind a camera is another matter."
In a negative review, Salon noted:
Apocalypto gained some passionate champions in the Hollywood community. Actor Robert Duvall called it "maybe the best movie I've seen in 25 years". Director Quentin Tarantino said: "I think it's a masterpiece. It was perhaps the best film of that year. I think it was the best artistic film of that year."
Martin Scorsese, writing about the film, called it "a vision," adding,
Actor Edward James Olmos said: "I was totally caught off guard. It's arguably the best movie I've seen in years. I was blown away."
In 2013, director Spike Lee placed the film on his list of all-time essential films.
In 2016, British director Edgar Wright named it as one of his 1,000 favorite films.
In 2022, director S.S. Rajamouli listed Apocalypto in his Sight & Sound poll.
In Mexico, the film registered a wider number of viewers than Perfume and Rocky Balboa. It even displaced memorable Mexican premieres such as Titanic and Poseidon. According to polls performed by the newspaper Reforma, 80% of polled Mexicans labeled the film as "very good" or "good".
Aspects of Maya culture and civilization depicted in Apocalypto are considered by some scholars to be historically inaccurate. According to Allan Wall of Banderas News, "The art, architecture and setting of the movie mixes aspects of different epochs and regions within the Mayan civilization." Some scholars have pointed out that the depiction of mass human sacrifices and widespread slavery was more typical of the Aztecs. In contrast, Mayanist David Stuart stated that human sacrifice was not rare and based on carvings and mural paintings, there are "more and greater similarities between the Aztecs and Mayas."
Aside from the controversy surrounding the alleged historical inaccuracies, scholars and indigenous activists were concerned over the film's highlighting the human sacrifices that occurred during the later years before the Spanish conquest. Anthropologist Traci Ardren felt that Apocalypto was biased because "no mention is made of the achievements in science and art, the profound spirituality and connection to agricultural cycles, or the engineering feats of Maya cities". The film has also been criticized by Guatemalan activist Ignacio Ochoa as "an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another long before the arrival of Europeans and thus they deserved, in fact, needed, rescue."
Richard D. Hansen, a historical consultant on the film, stated in an interview with The Washington Post that the film does "give the feeling [that the Maya were] a sadistic lot", and expressed being "a little apprehensive about how the contemporary Maya will take it." The film's focus on "gratuitous violence" led Julia Guernsey, a professor of Mesoamerican art and culture, to condemn the film, stating in an interview, "there's a lot of really offensive racial stereotyping. They're shown as these extremely barbaric people, when in fact, the Maya were a very sophisticated culture." Guernsey points out that the film is seen through the lens of Western morality and states that it is important to examine "alternative world views that might not match our own 21st century Western ones but are nonetheless valid."
Apocalypto has been criticized for its depictions of mass sacrifices that were more typical for Aztecs than Mayas. Human sacrifice was "arguably less common in ancient Maya society." According to Hansen, the film depicts the post-classic period when the Maya were influenced by the Toltecs and Aztecs. Hansen states, "We know warfare was going on. The Postclassic center of Tulum is a walled city; these sites had to be in defensive positions. There was tremendous Aztec influence by this time. The Aztecs were clearly ruthless in their conquest and pursuit of sacrificial victims, a practice that spilled over into some of the Maya areas."
Other disputed depictions of the Mayas include the sacrifice of commoners and mass graves. The Mayas sacrificed nobility and societal elites instead of commoners according to Anthropology professor Stephen Houston. Archaeological sites indicate that the Mayas used several methods for sacrifice such as "decapitation, heart excision, dismemberment, hanging, disembowelment, skin flaying, skull splitting and burning." Anthropologists have also pointed out that there is no evidence of mass graves in Maya as depicted in the film. Hansen states that this is "conjecture", saying that "all [Gibson was] trying to do there is express the horror of it". Another disputed scene, when Jaguar Paw and the rest of the captives are used as target practice, was acknowledged by the filmmakers to be invented as a plot device for igniting the chase sequence.
According to the DVD commentary track by Mel Gibson and Farhad Safinia, the ending of the film was meant to depict the first contact between the Spaniards and Mayas that took place in 1511 when Pedro de Alvarado arrived on the coast of the Yucatán and Guatemala, and also during the fourth voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1502. The arrival of the Europeans in Apocalypto and its thematic meaning is a subject of disagreement. Traci Ardren, anthropologist, wrote that the arrival of the Spanish as Christian missionaries had a "blatantly colonial message that the Mayas needed saving because they were 'rotten at the core.'" According to Ardren, Apocalypto "replays, in glorious big-budget technicolor, an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another long before the arrival of Europeans and thus they deserved, in fact, they needed, rescue. This same idea was used for 500 years to justify the subjugation of Maya people." David van Biema, in an article written for Time, questions whether the Spaniards are portrayed as saviors of the Mayas, since they are depicted ominously with Jaguar Paw acknowledging their arrival as a threat and deciding to return to the forest.