Mel Gibson's Apocalypto Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Mel Gibsons Apocalypto - Essay ExampleHowever, the film by Gibson does not indicate any overcritical relevance to the current world as the film deals too much with violence and blood, forgetting to pay aid to other details among the Maya people, which shaped their current cultural and social dynamics, though violence is part of like a shots social setting. Ardren (2006) explains that though the Maya practiced violence and brutality against their fellow lodge, and practiced child sacrifices in this classical period, the Maya people are also well kn aver for achievements that range from arts, sciences deeply tooted spirituality that had linkup with agricultural cycles, and the profound engineering design of the Mayan cities. However the Apocalypto shuns these achievements aside and concentrates on portraying the Maya people as grossly brutal people, with savage nature to one another until the Europeans arrived in their territory, supposedly to rescue them from these godforsaken r ituals and violence. The arrival of the missionaries particularly towards the end of the film and the calm experienced in Maya directly suggests the Mayan people and so needed rescue by the Europeans from their savage nature, towards a more enlightened community. Ardren argues that the same idea was utilise to subjugate the Mayan people for more than 500 years, but it has received vehement opposition from the Mayan community and intellectuals today. on that point is proof that such ideas of portraying the Mayan pole as Savage and brutal, and in need of salvation from their own self was used in justifying the civil war between the 1970s and 1990s, through manipulation from the Guatemalan army (Ardren, 2006). Therefore, the film is grossly one sided, and presents an offensive biased perception of the Mayan people. The rituals suggested in the film have got no relevance to the society today. In the film, the priests placed their victims on pyramid tops, stretch them over a stone al ter, strike on the chest with an obsidian knife, and tore the still beating heart, lifting it up to the sun (Sweedler, 2007). though there are evidence of past human rituals among the ancient Mayan communities, Gibson in the film is keen to burn up the sacrificial practices of the pre-Columbia Mexico to their own interests, than offering a concise historical account of the past rituals in the Mayan community (Sweedler, 2007). The understanding of sacrifice in the Mayan community is far removed from the rituals portrayed in Apocalypto where the captives are set like cattle being led to a slaughter than captors flesh and blood. The rationalize portrayed against the captives in Apocalypto is characteristic of Goibsons films, where he portrays both cruelty and brutality. This is portrayed through the word picture of mean looking hunters that suggest pure evil. However, to a lesser extent Gibsons film has nigh cultural and social relevance despite the gross violence that runs throug h the film. The long chase of jaguar towards the end comes to terminates when he is suddenly saved by the arrival of Christopher Columbus and his fellow explorers, whose presence importantly affect the bewildered Holcane worriers (Sweedler, 2007). The Arrival of Columbus at the shores of Yucatan in 1502, in the year of his fourth picnic marked a direct contact between the indigenous people in American, the