Apocalypto is a fiction plus epic and a gorgeous movie released in 2006 and is directed by Mel Gibson. Its good movie and takes you to the heydays living of Maya. The costumes and sets are rated at first. The famous quote in the movie is “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it destroys itself from within.” This makes us to predict the destruction of the great empire at the end. The movie revolves around post classic Mayan civilization and its collapse at the end. It depicts the story of a Mesoamerican (the hero-jaguar paw) who has to escape human sacrifice which the Mayans believed a way to stop drought and diseases throughout their land and rescue his family after the destruction of his village.
When I first saw few scenes from the movie I felt fun and adventurous, as it was a scene of Mayans celebrating by killing a tapir and distributing its parts among members of the hunting group. During the early scene you would find a member from the hunting party being tricked by others to eat the testicles so that he could finally impregnate his wife. The next scenes almost shifts the tone as the peaceful tribes village is captured by a group of raiding Mayans who destroy the village, captures the healthy men and chains them to long poles and forced to march towards the Mayan temple. The hero manages safeguarding his wife seven and his son by stepping them down into a dry well. Successive killings and humiliation holds the movie story and depicts the cruel nature of the Mayans.
These captured people had to die in a gruesome manner being sacrificed to gods in order to stop drought and the spread of diseases in the land. You will find this disgusting where their hearts will be carved out and their heads will be chopped out and rolled down the temple stairs.
Human sacrifice: The movie depicts the Maya as a “super-cruel, psycho-sadistic society on the skids, a ghoulscape occupied in extensive slavery, reckless sewage treatment and bad rave dancing, with a real lust for human blood. Apocalypto has been criticized for portraying a type of human sacrifice which was more typical of the Aztecs than of the Maya. Archaeologist Lisa Lucero said, “the classic Maya really didn’t go in for mass sacrifice, that was the Aztecs.
I liked it because though it was a fair representation of the mayan civilization, it tries to depict the collapse of the entire empire at the end which is due to practices like exploitation of tribes to be sold and treated to death, natural resources like over-farming and mining and political corruption within the tribes. I don’t know what the major occupation of Mayans was. Am also not sure whether the Mayans were real hunters as depicted by Mel Gibson in Apocalypto, as some believe they were agriculturist. The movie is awesome at the first part, you can watch it definitely if you want some fun plus heart stopping scenes.
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