Excellent movie, not for the squeamish though.. Hats off to Mel Gibson for taking on some of the myths surrounding these cultures. The Maya accomplished much, but they did have a very dark side.

I do want to see this movie.
It is intresting to me how we often look back at previous cultures and civilizations marveling at their accomplishments without tempering our awe of their achievements.
Eqyptians, Mayans or Romans did some very impressive stuff, but then again it is pretty easy to go big with an endless supply of slaves.

This comment had links so it was put into moderation so I am reposting it without the links to experts talking about the historical innaccuracy of the film:

As an entertainment I enjoyed Apocalypto, too, but do you honestly believe, Joe, it’s “one of the most important historical documents we have for understanding the settlers’ cultural inheritance.” You have to be joking.

Numerous experts criticized the film for its historical innaccuracies:

“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 and thus they deserved, in fact, needed, rescue,” wrote Traci Ardren, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Miami.

Do you believe the historical accuracy of every movie you see, Joe?

And what connection are you trying to make between the culture of Latin America today and the culture depicted in the film, however innaccurately? Are you claiming that they are savages and that justifies treating them as as less than human, the way many Americans and Europeans justified slavery by claiming that Africans were savages? Do you think that “Birth of a Nation” was also a “historical document”? And do you honestly believe that the Europeans who conquered the people of Latin America by slaughtering thousands of Indians were less savage?

No Zimzo, I am saying this is the history. I’ve read numerous histories of Mexico now, virtually all of which are “sympathetic,” and the depiction of pre-conquest Mexico in all of them matches what the film depicts. Obviously, the movie does not focus on the mundane, day to day life of the people. No movie does. But the war aspect is exactly what was happening at the time.

This is precisely why Cortez was able to basically conquer the “Aztec” (Mexica) nation with 400 Spanish men. There was so much discontent among other tribes, because of the oppressive Mexica system of tributes and constant war, that he was easily able to pull together a massive proxy military force.

This is also part of the reason the economic and political evolution of Mexico went in such a bad direction right from the outset. The Spanish just took installed themselves into the position formerly held by the Mexica – very broadly speaking, but essentially this is accurate.

Thus the feudal economy continued right on through – and past – Mexican “independence” which occurred only 40 years after American independence. Again, I am way overgeneralizing and probably missing some key facts, but this is pretty much what happened. The current oligarchic political system and two-class society can be seen as having arisen in part because of the colonial foundation.

Combined with a few other factors such as really, REALLY bad management and subsequently lots and lots of debt, Mexico just has never been able to get it quite right.

So my position is, it makes sense to understand the history and the movie accurately depicts a portion of that history.

Most movies take artistic license in order to tell a story. The King of Kong film I wrote about last week was a documentary, and the filmmakers explain the Special Features they had to finesse some facts in order to make the conflict in the film more understandable for the audience.

In Apocalypto, Gibson for whatever reason grafted an actual historical scenario – the pre-Colombian social/political environment of Central Mexico – with a separate historical scenario – the post-decline Mayan civilization that might have existed in Eastern Mexico.

Honestly, if you know the history but did not know anything else about the movie, you’d watch it nodding your head saying “sensational but about right.” This is definitely my situation because I’ve seen it several times and had no idea it was supposed to be about the Mayans until I read Zimzo’s quote.

In reality, the Mayan civilization had declined substantially before the Aztec/Mexica had even arrived on the scene, and it was located in a different part of Mexico.

Some commentators make the case that the Mayans practiced “less” human sacrifice than the Aztecs – but that’s a distinction without a difference. Mayan temples have been found with evidence of an ungodly number of sacrificial victims.

So the story relates a situation that might have existed between the Aztecs and maybe the Tlaxcalans or Cholulans, neither of whom would have been represented as such a tiny jungle enclave – but you have to grant some license to make the story simpler. But then the filmmaker says it’s about the Mayans. Go figure.

The point remains, if you forget what Gibson says the movie is about, and just watch it, it provides a valuable depiction of the situation when the Spaniards arrived.

Another note, that quote from the “professor” Ardren challenging its depiction of events “long before the arrival of Europeans” is a bit misleading and makes me wonder if the professor saw the film.

The movie obviously does not depict “long before” because the Europeans arrive at the end. It depicts the situation right before the arrival.

Joe,

Are you basically telling me that I only had to read the text of your post to get your understanding? Then why are there all these comments? And why are you trying to clarify anything for zimzo? You know he never gets it as you will see in the next comments.

Joe writes: “Another note, that quote from the “professor” Ardren challenging its depiction of events “long before the arrival of Europeans” is a bit misleading and makes me wonder if the professor saw the film.”

That makes me wonder if you read the article. She points out that the last Mayan city was abandoned 300 years before the first European arrived, just one of many inaccuracies in a film you laughably referred to as an “important historical document.”

You still haven’t explained why you think this film is relevant to the issue of illegal immigration today and why you thought it was necessary to point out that the fictional events depicted in the film occurred “while Michaelangelo was laboring to complete the painting of the Sistine Chapel.” What bearing does that have on Latin American culture today? Does it have more or less bearing than the fact that Persians were inventing algebra while Europeans were barbarians?

I know the Mayans had declined many years earlier, Zimzo, that’s why I just wrote “In reality, the Mayan civilization had declined substantially before the Aztec/Mexica had even arrived on the scene, and it was located in a different part of Mexico,” and made the points about artistic license in my comment above – where I commented on artistic license and how Gibson had grafted two separate historical circumstances together.

It’s been so long since I had to do any real spoon-feeding, I guess I’m not very good at it any more. He told the story of the Aztecs but apparently used the Mayans as the characters.

By the way, there could have been some remnants of cities that might be called Mayan by the time the Spanish arrived. Although the classic Mayan period ended many hundreds of years earlier, there was a semi-rebirth on the Yucatan. The Mayan Chichen-Itza period. Maybe that’s what Gibson was reaching for, although the timing is still a little off.

Obviously, when the boats first pulled up to shore, whoever was on the Yucatan at the time is who would have first seen them and this is pretty far from where the Aztecs were. There are still Mayans in that general area of Central America today, so they certainly could have been there then.

The events in the film are much more representative of the Aztecs. Supposedly the principal city, now Mexico City, was cleaner than that depicted in the film – however the Spanish writings about the period describe encountering temples not greatly different than the pyramid in the film. Pretty grimy with blood, and the evident scenes of thousands of sacrifices.

But like I said, if you did not know these were supposed to be the Mayans, it would pass for a close approximation of what was happening with the Aztecs and their neighboring tribes when the Spanish arrived. The film does not say anywhere that I saw “We’re talking about the Mayans here.” So in that sense I still think it’s a valuable historical document.

Sort of like watching “Saving Private Ryan” and then finding out the director intended the setting to be the Spanish American War. You’d say “That ain’t right, but it was a pretty good depiction of D-Day anyway.”

An interesting movie, but I really don’t see that it has much more relevance to Mexico today than Disney’s “Pocahantas” has to the United States today.

So you have a problem with Michaelangelo too!? My, the self-hating malady is more deeply rooted than I could have expected.

Yes, as I explained about nine times now in this thread, the events depicted in the movie reflect what was happening in the valley of Mexico between the Mexica and numerous neighboring tribes. The movie does not reflect what was likely happening with the Maya – however, you can watch the movie four times and not know it has anything to do with the Maya since it does not say that anywhere (except in naming of Quetzlecoatle under the Mayan-Chitzen-Itchan name … K something, and I guess the language which I don’t happen to speak).

If there were really Aztec they’d be speaking Nahuatle … got me here.

If you want to know what was happening in central Mexico at the time of the Spanish arrival, this movie is a great depiction of that and approximates the historical accounts. Gibson stretched the truth to say it was about a different group of people. This allowed him to depict the main characters in the story actually see the boats arrive – which certainly they would not have really done from central Mexico, and to graft an extremely vague, basically evanescent, story line about the decline of the Mayan civilizaton.

But on the face of it, it’s a good historical movie. Watch it and get a history lesson, just remember it’s about the Aztecs, not the Maya.

I think Joe has finally gone completely off the deep end. How enjoyable!

Laura V,
If so, now you and zimzo have some company.

Zimzo:
yes, the arab cultures were very advanced at one point. Then a very tragic thing happened, they clobbed onto the concept of a worldwide Islamic state and have been on a downward spiral ever since. The secret to an advanced society is knowing you have arrived and being smart enough to stay there. Our Arab friends didn’t get the memo.

An interesting commentary :

http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=4074