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Title: Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto
Region:
One
Genre:
Action Adventure Drama
Star:
Rudy Youngblood
Writers:
Mel Gibson and Fahrad Safinia
Director:
Mel Gibson
Feature
length: 138 minutes
Extras:
Feature Length Audio Commentary With Writer, Director, Producer Mel Gibson and
Writer, Co-Producer Farhad Safinia, Deleted Scene With Optional Audio Commentary
By Director, Producer Mel Gibson and Writer, Co-Producer Farhad Safinia, Becoming
Mayan: Creating Apocalypto Documentary
Languages:
Mayan DTS Digital 5.1 Theatrical Surround Sound and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Sound
Subtitles:
English Subtitles For The Deaf And Hearing Impaired and English, French,
and Spanish Language Subtitles
Packaging:
Amaray Keep Case
Chapter
Stops: 19
Sound:
DTS Digital 5.1 Theatrical Surround Sound and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Year
of Theatrical Release: 2006/DVD Release: 2007
Theatrical
Distributor: Touchstone Pictures
Home
Video Distributor: Touchstone Home Entertainment
MPAA
Rating: R
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
I
saw Mel Gibson's Apocalypto during its opening weekend back in December
of 2006. It was the first time I had been to a movie theater casually in months
and I had read a local New York newspaper review the morning before I went to
see the film. The film critic is one whose reviews I admire very much. No one
ever agrees with film critics one hundred percent of the time, but sometimes
there are critics whose opinions one tends to agree with more often than not.
This said I was kind of surprised at the review the motion picture critic wrote
because I just did not see the film in the same manner as his review made it
seem or would have me expect it to be. For the record, Apocalypto is not
a great film, but compared with much of what has been released over that past
year and even this year so far, it is far from the worst. While some have
focused on the film's violence, which in my opinion is tame compared to some of
the movies I've reviewed, and compared to what Gibson himself has remarked about
the signs from within that detail the fall of a great civilization, what struck
me as interesting about Apocalypto was the subtext concerning fathers and
sons. In the film we see two sets of fathers and sons. One is the father
of Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), who instills a sense of pride, self-reliance,
and knowledge of how fear can infect one's soul. The other father figure is the
leader of the Mayan invaders who attack the village and who rewards his son with
his knife during their long trek back to the city with their captives. Both
fathers in the film love their sons and both sons look up to and respect their
fathers. What ultimately differentiates the fate of the two sons is the
environment and manner in which they were raised. To the very end Jaguar Paw's
father is honorable and teaches his son to think while the son of the Mayan is
not in my opinion a fully matured adult. He is still seeking his father's
approval and the example his father sets is one of obeying commands without
thinking for one's self.
This
dichotomy can be seen in a larger scale in the manner in which the village Elder
tells the tribe a story about man's unquenchable desire without giving a
soothing resolution. Indeed this is a foreshadowing of things to come. However
haunting the story might be, the question it sends to both the villagers and
viewer invites one to ponder the meaning of the words in their own life.
Conversely the Mayans blindly follow their Mayan High Priest with bread and
circuses provided through ritual bloodlust sacrifices to appease their gods and
ignore the obvious signs as to why their civilization is in a decline. They grow
crops near a pit of rotting headless corpses, allow their people to suffer and
die from pestilence and famine without taking into consideration why they are
being faced with extinction. Despite the Mayan advances in mathematics,
architecture and building, as well as an understanding of astronomy that was
ahead of their European counterparts at one time, they abandon science and
reason out of fear in favor of religious theatrics and empty rituals to control
their people. In short they no longer think for themselves. They only react and
thus that is why the quality of life for the villagers in the jungle is better
than the Mayan city citizens. The tragedy of Apocalypto has nothing to do
with the stars to paraphrase Shakespeare. It lies within the people themselves.
Thus hopefully people who see Mel Gibson's Apocalypto either on DVD or
Blu-ray Disc will not just walk away thinking about the film as an adventure
story, but as an allegory for our own troubled world today. It may not be
easy, but we need to think about people...
The
standard definition DVD edition of Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto is a fine
example of what can still be accomplished with the standard definition DVD
format. It also looks fantastic when upconverted to 1080i on the Toshiba HD DVD
Player HD-XA1 or on the Sony PlayStation 3, which recently released a firmware
upgrade that allows for up to 1080p standard definition upconversion where
available on NTSC Region One DVDs. Of course seeing the film in true high
definition will always be better as is the case with the Blu-ray Disc version of
Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, but for those still on the HD fence waiting to
see if there will indeed be a winner to the next generation HD format war we are
all caught in, I have to admit that Touchstone Home Entertainment’s DVD
edition of Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto looks good enough that if there were
no such thing as HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc, I’d be happy with the DVD alone. Now
this is not a dig at either HD format because I love them both, but I would be a
liar if I did not emphasize how great this DVD looks. In addition to the
anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) presentation, high fidelity DTS Digital 5.1
Theatrical Surround Sound and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound are provided in
the film’s original Mayan language track with a choice of English Subtitles
for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired and English, French, and Spanish Language
Subtitles too. English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired are also
provided for the optional feature length audio commentary with Writer, Director,
and Producer Mel Gibson and Writer and Co-Producer Farhad Safinia .as well as
their commentary for the deleted scene on the DVD. The commentary is by far the
best Gibson has done for one of his own films because he seems to be far more
relaxed and comfortable with talking about the making of a film to an unseen
listening audience. I’m not sure if it is out of practice or simply his
interest in the subject matter, but of the DVD commentaries he has participated
in for Braveheart, The Passion Of The Christ, and Apocalypto,
Gibson clearly seems much more in his element when talking about the on location
shooting, the real gorier nature of the sacrifices done by the Mayan tribes,
which is still being discovered, as well as the production design and casting
too. I think what Gibson has as a Director is a natural gift for visual
storytelling that I’m not sure he developed from all his years acting or was
something he always had in him or both, but it is there and so far out of the
four feature films he as directed solo, I like his movies and look forward to
his next one. Politics and controversy aside, Gibson is good filmmaker and he
knows how to tell a story so whether it is in English or another language, the
viewer can follow what is going on instinctually without even reading subtitles
and that is something not easy to do. I would describe that skill as being akin
to a scientist’s ability to teach sophisticated concepts to laypeople and not
only make it understandable, but make it entertaining too.
The
short deleted scene (: 39) depicts an injured and burned dear stumbling away
from the Mayan city to further depict the environmental damage that was
afflicting the Mayans by their own hands. The documentary Becoming Mayan:
Creating Apocalypto (25:13) packs a lot of information about the making of
the film in less than a half an hour and nicely wraps up the bonus features on
this dual layered DVD. While I wish the theatrical teaser and trailer were
included on the DVD, I am thankful that there are not a ton of coming
attractions for other films on this disc as it would have cheapened the quality
of the DVD release as is as a whole. The main menu is animated with scenes from
the film while the subsequent menus are standard interactive still frames that
are easy to navigate. Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto is available on DVD-Video
as well as Blu-ray Disc now courtesy of Touchstone Home Entertainment.
©
Copyright 2007 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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