Apocalypto

Today I am writing a review about a movie that has greatly disappointed me, even though I have not yet seen the movie! I was really looking forward to this movie, however I have read a few reviews that were so horrific that I probably will not see the movie. In fact one reviewer thought the movie was so brutal and graphic that she wondered about the mental health of Mel Gibson!

A few months ago, my dad recommended a book called “1491” to me. On our vacation in Hawaii, I had a chance to read the book. It was great. Essentially it says that everything that we learned about the Americas in history books is wrong. The traditional history textbooks suggest that when Europeans discovered the “New World”, the continents were sparsely populated with small nomadic tribes. Furthermore, European culture is portrayed as richer and more advanced than the Americas.

Research over the last few decades suggests that this may be all wrong. Our knowledge of the history of the Americas is changing rapidly and in surprising ways. There is no consensus yet, but most historians are convinced that the culture is much more advanced than previously thought. Both South and North America were densely populated with large teeming cities. In some ways these cities were more advanced than the European cities, raising the question of who actually was the “New World” and who was the “Old World”.

It is believed that the early explorers barely penetrated the coastline, yet brought European diseases that did not exist in the Americas. These diseases ran rampant across the continents. Some historians believe that the population dropped by as much as 95% due to European diseases. By the time that Europeans started exploring the interior of the continents, the native civilizations had been decimated. They had been reduced to nomadic tribes. Anyway, the book “1491” by Charles Mann is fascinating and I wholeheartly recommend it.

Recently, I heard that Mel Gibson has made a film called "Apocalypto" based on the Mayan culture. I had hoped that he (or the screenwriter) was familiar with the recent research and they had filmed their version of what this ancient civilization looked like. I was pretty excited to see the result. Recently, I saw a movie trailer that looked intriguing and this added to my excitement. Then I read a few reviews of the film. The reviews are not actually bad, in fact some are rather good, however every one comments on how horrific the scenes of violence are. At this point in my life, I just don't want to see it. I really wish that they had made a PG version of this movie.