open Democracy News Analysis - Jungle dumb: Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, Kanishk Tharoor - Comments

Not logged in on "Jungle dumb: Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto"

Not logged in — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:31:20 +0100

His name is Kanishk Tharoor--not Karoor, genius.

stefanie on "Jungle dumb: Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto"

stefanie — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 03:38:52 +0000

i agree with krishnamc in that obsession with blood, power, money or anything really will ultimately result in an individual as well as society's demise. likewise, parting from what is natural is.. well.. un-natural and will lead to the same. the book collapse covers the topic well.

the movie is certainly open to interpretation and i fear for the most part misinterpretation. seems that the typical interpretations from the movie are amongst other things racist and delusional, due most likely to viewers western superiority and grandose complex and subconcious assumptions. i find the idea that the spanish at the end of the movie turned up to 'save' the mayans from themselves quite baffling.

i have no idea what mel was aiming for, but my interpretation painted an obvious picture. in a nutshell - the 'bad' city mayans had detahced themselves from the world around them and consequently destroyed it and themselves in the process. the spanish at the end were even more detached from the environment (so much so that they had no idea and thought they would be helping). to me, they threatened to be an even bigger and more formiddable enemy. not only would they conquer and destroy the land (same as the 'bad' mayans), but also would destroy the culture, and ofcourse do it with a smile and a feel good attitude.

not surprising, the main character and his family chose not to embrace the spanish arrivals but instead to retreat into the jungle by themselves. ofcourse in the real world, there is no escape.

on a side note, i don't do well with gore, but given the story, i felt it was appropriate and prefferable to hollywood fight scenes which fail to portray the cruelty and pain of such occurences in reality, thus downgrading it and failing to represent how bad violence is.

anyway that's my 2 cents for today. any comments?

beenakumar2005 on "Jungle dumb: Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto"

beenakumar2005 — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 09:37:18 +0000

Looks to me like heimbinder decided to hate Mr. Tharoor because most of his criticisms are valid. His frustration is also evident by the way he has misspelled the author's name in three places in his comment. Also, exotic foreigners, as Iljay calls them, don't go around making movies to push their faith or glorify their religion on the unsuspecting masses.

krishnamc on "Jungle dumb: Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto"

krishnamc — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 00:08:16 +0000

I feel the author this essay and many of the people in this forum may have missed is that, the film may not have been at all about historical accuracy,religion but a recreation of our present day problems.

The first quote, listed at the beginning of this film hit this point well " a civilisation is only conquered after it has destroyed itself from within"

The hero of the film saves himself and his family not using any mythical powers but by using his comonsense, judgement and awareness in all cases. Gibson portray's the civilisation of the city as morally bankrupt. Our global culture has become morally bankrupt. The city deweller for their obsession with blood, our modern day society with it's obsession with status and wealth.

The villagers are anihilated, because of their fear of being diseased by human suffering. Rather than find the cause of those already pillaged and take action to evade it they ignore it at their peril. This is what is coming with green house emitions where we are in a "state of denial."

If anything Gibson film values are from those of eastern philosophy and rationalism. Although their is obvious superficial retelling of Moses story above this. The prophecies in the film are protrayed as half-developed awareness rather than ideas that we are controlled by and empowered God. The hero uses intelligence not magic of outwit his opponents.

farcity101 on "Jungle dumb: Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto"

farcity101 — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 03:18:38 +0000

Before I even start, let me say I wish Mel Gibson had made a movie about the Spanish Conquest of the Aztecs--what an epic that could be!

Now, regardless of the historical merits of the movie, it did show fairly accurate costumes. It actually seemed toned down on the tatooing and teeth filing into points.

Head hunting existed throughout Mexico, Central America, and Peru, so the cutting off of the heads has a historical basis. Maya priests also wore human head suspended from necklaces, as is seen on sculptures (also a human head is shown on the steps of a temple on the murals at Bonampak.

The Maya had a fascinating civilization, but it was also a barbaric civilization. People with high levels of mathematics and writing are not necessarily "civilized," a word that has a friendly connotation to most people.

It is clear from both real history and the movie that Catholism was a better religion for the Indians that what they had in Mexico and Yucata. It is a shame that the Maya books were burned, but this must be seen by the light of the fact that Catholic priests were finding babies on their altars with their hearts cut out.

It also needs to be understood that even if the Europeans had come in peace to the New World, the Indians would have been decimated by European diseases, such as measels and smallpox. Disease killed more Indians by far than the white man ever killed. That is NOT to justify the slaughter of the Indians, but it does add a different perspective to the picture.

I'll end with with what Bernal Diaz del Castillo said when Cortes and some other Spaniards climbed up to the top of the great Aztec temple:

In this place they had a drum of most enormous size, the head of which was made of the skins of large serpents: this instrument when struck resounded with a noise that could be heard to the distance of two leagues, and so doleful that it deserved to be named the music of the infernal regions; and with their horrible sounding horns and trumpets, their great knives for sacrifice, their human victims, and their blood besprinkled altars, I devoted them, and all their wickedness to God�s vengeance, and thought that the time would never arrive, that I should escape from this scene of human butchery, horrible smells, and more detestable sights.

The same was true of the Maya temples. Remember what happened when a boatload of 17 Spanish sailors washed up on the coast of Yucatan some five years before the Conquest. All but two were sacrificed, and the two who lived did so by becoming Maya (one married a Maya Lord's daughter. Years later when Cortes landed and sent people to rescue the men, one man wouldn't go because he was ashamed. His body was covered with tatoos and piecings. In other words, he survived by becoming a modern-American high school student.

Just a few quick thought from having just watched the movie. I'm glad I saw it. I would rate it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

I wish the spear in the side scene wasn't there--I mean, hint, hint, this guy is supposed to be some kind of Jesus--he even gets baptised in a leap off the waterfall. But then he falls into a black mud pool of quick sand. Now what was that supposed to mean?

I thought he had been saved.

ILJAY on "Jungle dumb: Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto"

ILJAY — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 20:42:32 +0000

A typical liberal knee-jerk review. If we switched Mayans and Christians in the film, it would go on the must see list of the New York Times and The Guardian. To put it simply: stereotyping Christians is fashionable but stereotyping exotic foreigners is politically incorrect.

matthew.basham on "Jungle dumb: Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto"

matthew.basham — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 17:05:37 +0000

I agree entirely. Most appalling was the scene where Gibson injected the Lord's prayer. It seems Gibson can't do anything without preaching catholic/christian dogma. I also agree about the age-old noble savage stereotypes portrayed in the film. It is amazing, some 500 years after Columbus's arrival, and we still have good indian/bad indian stereotypes permeating our society.

ddj on "Jungle dumb: Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto"

ddj — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 22:45:58 +0000

I agree that the "Christian imperialism vs Oriental decadence" interpretation is rather forced. If nothing else, variations on similar themes suggest themselves just as readily. Roman (& American?) Empire, to name an obvious one.

Not logged in on "Jungle dumb: Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto"

Not logged in — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 19:50:13 +0000

I found "Apocalypto" to be a wholly entertaining movie with too-high a quotient of violence, but not at all intended to be accurate historically. Gibson is a fantastic filmmaker, though I find his personal prejudices quite ugly (as the whole world is aware). But ultimately what is relevant is whether the film holds up as well-made, and it works well on that score.

It wasn't clear, I thought, whether the invading tribesmen were Maya, Aztec or whathaveyou; perhaps that is attributable to my ignorance. If Aztec, the violence is thus very much understated; for example, no cannibalism is depicted (phew). If Maya, that is authentically Maya, no astronomy is depicted. (Then again, which of those makes the better movie? I kid; don't care much for cannibalistic rituals myself.)

On the point that Tharoor makes regarding the totally deus ex machina ending, which I felt was cheap and tacked-on (naturally of course, as it was d.e.m.), I don't agree. Maybe he's reading something into it that I'm not, but I don't see the Christian-imperialism-subtext. It just ended too quickly to establish that.

m_heimbinder on "Jungle dumb: Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto"

m_heimbinder — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 16:06:36 +0000

I believe that Mr. Karoor decided to hate Mr. Gibsons film before he ever stepped foot in the theater.

Some of his criticisms are valid, but his interpretation of the "arrival of the conquistadores and Christian missionaries" is entirely off. Briefly, the European ships are most certainly not the "climax" of the film but the conclusion and they are introduced with an ominous tone of foreboding, not, as Karor claims, as the Christain saviors of the Maya. The girl infected with small pox and Jaguar Paw's retreat into the jungle with his family both attest to this.

Karoor is so ready to dismiss Apacalypto with his pre-canned academic analyses that he isn't even watching the same film as the rest of us.

Jungle dumb: Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, Kanishk Tharoor

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Mel Gibson's Mayan blockbuster is an imperialist Christian dream but otherwise an historical and cultural nightmare, says Kanishk Tharoor. Read the rest of this post...