{"id":2749,"date":"2009-03-25T22:20:29","date_gmt":"2009-03-26T05:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/uncategorized\/apocalypto\/"},"modified":"2009-03-25T22:20:29","modified_gmt":"2009-03-26T05:20:29","slug":"apocalypto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/uncategorized\/apocalypto\/","title":{"rendered":"Apocalypto"},"content":{"rendered":"

I watched Apocalypto<\/em> tonight. This is a case where the small screen made some things more bearable than they would have been on the large screen. It is a relentlessly, horrifically violent movie that is mostly about our inhumanity, although some would see love and redemption under all the blood and cruelty. Not me. I don\u2019t know how constant Mayan sacrifices were, but this seemed quite a sausage factory.<\/p>\n

I imagine pre-Columbian cultures knew more about solar eclipses than Mel Gibson seems to. Sure, the masses might have been agitated, but the priesthood would have seen it coming well in advance. Gibson ignores the hours-long process of an eclipse and then speeds up the fun part. Of course, so did the Simpsons recently. Who has time for an eclipse anymore. (Heroes<\/em> was worse with total darkness that lasted an hour. I stopped watching after that.) But, Jesus, Mel, how could you show a full moon the night of the eclipse? How have we become so disconnected from Nature.<\/p>\n

And what exactly is the danger of a well filling with water, assuming you know how to tread water? I hope Mel never tries to drown himself in a slowly filling bathtub or pool.<\/p>\n

Ah, but it\u2019s not a documentary and it is Hollywood, so lighten up, eh? It is wonderful to hear two and a half hours of Nahuatl and to see a semi-mainstream American movie with subtitles throughout. And nothing but brown skin. That\u2019s pretty amazing, in and of itself. And the perhaps subtle message about human-caused environmental degradation was interesting. The market and Coliseum scenes were pretty cool, especially some of the hairstyles. If you need a sampler of piercings and tattoos, this may be the biggest collection available. So what if the climactic beach scene was far less surprising than finding the Statue of Liberty half-buried. It\u2019s only a movie.<\/p>\n

peace,
mjh<\/p>\n

PS: I\u2019m reminded of a John Boorman movie, The Emerald Forest<\/em> (1985). I highly recommend that over this, even if it made the central character a white guy. And Chac<\/em> (1975), the only other all-Nahuatl movie I\u2019ve seen. That one was more mystical and far less violent. Nyacola posh!<\/p>\n

PPS: For readers: Daniel Peters wrote three books, one each about Azteca, Maya, and Inca, as well as a more modern story featuring an anthropologist. I liked the Mayan one most (Tikal: A Novel About the Maya<\/em>). (I couldn\u2019t remember Peters\u2019 name, but I remembered I discovered his books in the library because they were near all the Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters. Ages ago, I read books by the shelf. Back before the Web.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I watched Apocalypto tonight. This is a case where the small screen made some things more bearable than they would have been on the large screen. It is a relentlessly, horrifically violent movie that is mostly about our inhumanity, although some would see love and redemption under all the blood and cruelty. Not me. I … Continue reading Apocalypto<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}