Have you ever heard of any director shouting out “I need to see the blood!” or “Hey, we are all dying here! We are all dying!” Some things like these? Actually, the sentences came from an Oscar- winning director: Mel Gibson, who was shooting an infernal scene for Apocalypto, his action epic film about the ancient Maya. Apocalypto (2006) is Gibson’s latest work, in which we can see the ritual of ancient Maya kingdom—the human sacrifice and the slave trade. Apocalypto, which is translated from the Greeks as “destruction and a new beginning,” is the idea that Gibson wants to convey to the audience “everything has a beginning and an end.”
In the movie, the Maya kingdom, whose ambitious leaders insist that if they do not appease gods by more temples and human sacrifices the crops will die. Jaguar Paw, the film’s hero, who is chose to be sacrificed to gods and pursued by the sinister Maya warriors. Because of several frightening chasing sequences through the rain forest and people’s unfamiliarity of the Maya civilization, Gibson successfully makes the audience see the movie attentively and feel jumpy about the unpredictable bloody scenes.
In fact, there are some people think that Apocalypto is just a movie with violence and barbarian doings; people are separated into pro-Mel and anti-Mel, having fierce debates on the Internet. However, what I want to talk about is not pro or anti-Mel, I want to talk about some special features of this movie, Apocalypto:
1. The Yucatec Maya dialogue spoken by native Mexican is used in this movie and is companied by subtitle. Gibson is interested in using unfamiliar languages on his film, and he believes that it can make the audience forget the reality, bringing them into the world of the film.
2. It is surprise to find that all cast members of Apocalypto do not have any experience in acting—many of whom are indigents of Guatemala or Mexico and had never seen a movie, let alone acted in one.
3. The movie is so violent that it is restricted. But it is different from the slasher which will make us feel sick.
All in all, Apocalypto is an extremely violent movie, in which casts speak in Mayan and there is no film star. What’s more, some one has uploaded the whole movie on YouTube. And it is not allowed, the file may be deleted some day. So if you want to see this movie, you can choose to see it from YouTube(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm6E7eC9zpw) or rent the DVD from the store.
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