Brutally Honest (Apocalypto)

The Weekly Standard ^ | 12/15/06 | Sonny Bunch

[contemplator]

I want to see this movie.

[Ueriah]

Yeah, I want to see this one too.

[Stoigo]

I'm going to see the movie this weekend after hearing favorable comments from people that have seen it already. They stated that it is powerful and graphic, but no more than "Saving Pvt. Ryan" or "Band of Brothers". The Standard report is well written and articulate. Very rare for news media these days.

[wbill]

I recently went to the pyramids at (sp?) Chitchenitza. They were impressive.

More impressive were the number of natives living in absolute squalor in the area. It's not often that you see a culture regress.

[RKV]

The same conclusions can be reached about many (if not all) pre-Columbian American civilizations. The Aztecs, Incas and other native american cultures were brutal and violent. Of course the same is true of many cultures in our world. The noble savage myth is just that.

[decimon]

...Apocalypto is a wonton desecration...

I've torn the hearts from a few wonton.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

Pretty decent jungle movie. I liked it.

(Comment given in the spirit of Mark Twain who, when asked to review a book, wrote "This is a good book. People who like good books will like this book.")

[Aquinasfan]

(and really, the movie is no more violent--and in some ways, far less so--than, say, Braveheart, which took home 5 Oscars, including Best Picture)

I can't wait to see this.

This one film will undo decades worth of the school disinformation campaign regarding the Mayas and Aztecs.

[Valin]

MURDERER!

[Mr. Jeeves]

Ignacio Ochoa, the director of the Nahual Foundation, says that "Gibson 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."

Ochoa knows better - but he also knows that plenty of white liberals are credulous enough to buy this line of BS.

[Valin]

So much for the "noble savage". I mean there's a reason they were/are called savages.

[Diamond]

Julia Guernsey, an assistant professor in the department of art and art history at the University of Texas told a reporter after viewing the film, "I hate it. I despise it. I think it's despicable. It's offensive to Maya people. It's offensive to those of us who try to teach cultural sensitivity and alternative world views that might not match our own 21st century Western ones but are nonetheless valid."

If "alternative world views that might not match our own...are nonetheless valid" then why does she consider an alternative world view of Mel Gibson despicable and offensive?

Ritual decapitation, human sacrifice, cannibalism, and slavery are "valid", but a Mel Gibson MOVIE is "despicable". Go figure.

Cordially

[Valin]

Gee, Ya think it's because they were, brutal to each other?
That whole cutting the hearts out thing was just a mininterpration, what it was, was an early experiment in open heart surgery.

[SMARTY]

"...offensive to those of us who try to teach cultural sensitivity and alternative world views that might not match our own 21st century Western ones but are nonetheless valid."

What is wrong with the old-fashioned idea about teaching facts? Facts, after all are the only stable, immutable building blocks of knowledge...right?

[brazzaville]

Good morning.
"Julia Guernsey, an assistant professor in the department of art and art history at the University of Texas"

Isn't a Guernsey a cow?

Michael Frazier

[3AngelaD]

Newsweek reports that "although a few Mayan murals do illustrate the capture and even torture of prisoners, none depicts decapitation" as a mural in a trailer for the film does."
Temple paintings at Bonampak depicting torture and slaughter aside, anyone who has ever been to Chitzen Itza and seen the decorations in the ball court, in which a ball player is decapitated, knows that is completely wrong.

"I hate it. I despise it. I think it's despicable. It's offensive to Maya people. It's offensive to those of us who try to teach cultural sensitivity and alternative world views that might not match our own 21st century Western ones but are nonetheless valid."
Translation: this will make it harder for me to lie to my students about how horrible Westnern culture is and how sweet and innocent the pre-Colombian peoples were, views which are not based on any factual evidence whatsoever.

[karnage]

It's quite gruesome, but absolutely brilliant.

[gondramB]

>>Yeah, I want to see this one too.<<

Not me - its a rare foreign language movie I want to see but you sure can see the crtics projecting their own bias -like this quote from one of the PC crowd.


>>"And the ending with the arrival of the Spanish (conquistadors) underscored the film's message that this culture is doomed because of its own brutality. The implied message is that it's Christianity that saves these brutal savages."<<

The Spanish conquest was brutal - we know that. That doesn't mean its wrong for Gibson to examine aspects the civilization that was there before that are often overlooked.

[randita]

The brutality of American Indians toward each other and outsiders continues to this day. Just watch the documentary, "Beyond the Gates of Splendor" and the movie based on the same events, "The End of the Spear".

One of the primary objections to "Apocalypto" put forth by film critics is that it is overly violent. This from the same crowd that nominates "The Departed" for a Golden Globe and who always fawn over anything by Scorcese, Peckinpah and Tarantino -- the gorier, the better for them.

I won't see this movie as I'm particularly squeamish about gore - shouldn't have gone to "The Departed", but son wanted to see it. I averted my gaze for half the film.

I hate to admit it, but I still haven't watched "Saving Private Ryan".