Apocalypto

Apocalypto
Promotional poster
Directed by	Mel Gibson
Written by	Mel Gibson Farhad Safinia
Produced by	Mel Gibson Farhad Safinia Bruce Davey Ned Dowd
Starring	Rudy Youngblood Raoul Trujillo Mayra Sérbulo Dalia Hernández Gerardo Taracena Rodolfo Palacios Bernardo Ruiz Juarez Ammel Rodrigo Mendoza Ricardo Diaz Mendoza Israel Contreras
Cinematography	Dean Semler
Edited by	John Wright
Music by	James Horner Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Production company	Icon Productions
Distributed by	Touchstone Pictures (US/Canada only)
Release date	December 8, 2006 (2006-12-08)
Running time	140 minutes
Country	Template:Film US
Language	Mayan
Budget	$40 million
Box office	$120,654,337

Apocalypto is a 2006 American historical action-adventure film directed by Mel Gibson. Set in Yucatan, Mexico, during the declining period of the Maya civilization, Apocalypto depicts the journey of a Mesoamerican tribesman who must escape human sacrifice and rescue his family after the capture and destruction of his village.

The film features a cast of Mexicans, Mayas, and some other Native Americans. Its Yucatec Maya dialogue is accompanied by subtitles.

Plot

While hunting tapir in the Mesoamerican jungle in the early 16th century, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), his father Flint Sky (Morris Birdyellowhead), and their fellow tribesmen encounter a procession of traumatized refugees. Speaking in Yucatec Maya, the group's leader explains that their lands were ravaged, and asks for permission to pass through the jungle. When Jaguar Paw and his tribesmen return home, Flint Sky tells his son not to let the refugee's fear infect him.

The next morning, after Jaguar Paw wakes from a nightmare involving the refugee leader, he sees warriors entering the village and setting the huts on fire. The raiders, led by Zero Wolf (Raoul Trujillo), attack and subdue the villagers. Jaguar Paw slips out with his pregnant wife Seven (Dalia Hernández) and his little son Turtles Run, lowering them by vine into a deep vertical cave, tying the vine off so they could climb out later. Jaguar Paw then kills a raider and returns to help the village. He is eventually subdued and an insane raider named Middle Eye (Gerardo Taracena), whom Jaguar Paw almost killed, slits Flint Sky's throat while the bound Jaguar Paw can only watch. Before the raiders leave with their prisoners, Snake Ink, one of the raider captains, notices Jaguar Paw staring toward the cave. Suspicious of the tied off vine hanging into the cave, he cuts it, trapping Seven and Turtles Run. The Jaguar Paw and the other captives are then led off into the jungle.

A short distance from the village they join another group of raiders who have captured the refugees Jaguar Paw met the day before. Later, Cocoa Leaf, a wounded captive tied to the same pole as Jaguar Paw nearly tumbles off a cliff, but Jaguar Paw and the others are able to pull him back up with incredible effort. Though Middle Eye, who is guarding them, is impressed by this show of brute power, he kills Cocoa Leaf by cutting him loose and pushing him off the cliff to taunt Jaguar Paw.

The raiding party march toward the Maya city, encountering razed forests, failed maize crops, slaves working in lime quarries, along with villages decimated by plague. A small girl dying of plague prophesies that a man running with a jaguar will bring the raiders to those who will scratch out the earth and end their world. In the city's outskirts, the female captives are sold as slaves and the males are escorted to the top of a step pyramid. The high priest sacrifices several captives, including Jaguar Paw's friend Curl Nose, by cutting out their beating hearts before beheading them. When Jaguar Paw is about to be sacrificed, a solar eclipse (also prophesied by the girl) occurs. The high priest looks at the king and the two share a knowing smile while the people below panic at the phenomenon. The priest declares the sun god Kukulkan is satisfied with the sacrifices. He asks Kukulkan to let light return to the world and the eclipse passes. The crowd cheers in amazement and the priest orders that the remaining captives be led away and disposed of.

Zero Wolf takes the captives to a ball court. The captives are released in pairs and forced to run the length of the open space within the ball court, offering Zero Wolf's men some target practice, with a cynical promise of freedom should they reach the end of the field alive. However, Zero Wolf's son, Cut Rock, is sent to the end of the field to "finish" any survivors. The raiders target the runners with javelins, arrows, and large stones. The first pair are Jaguar Paw's last living friends, Smoke Frog and Blunted. Smoke Frog is struck by a heavy stone, then finished off by Cut Rock while Blunted is impaled through the stomach by a javelin.

Next up are Jaguar Paw and the refugee leader from the beginning. Although they almost make it, the refugee leader is shot through the head by an arrow and Jaguar Paw is shot through the stomach by an arrow. As Cut Rock approaches to finish Jaguar Paw, the not-quite-dead Blunted trips Cut Rock to buy Jaguar Paw time. Cut Rock gets up and savagely kills Blunted then turns to finish off Jaguar Paw, but is stabbed through the neck with an arrowhead by Jaguar Paw, who then stumbles away toward the jungle.

As Cut Rock bleeds out with Zero Wolf easing him into the next life, Jaguar Paw runs through a withered maize field and an open mass grave before finally reaching the jungle. The enraged Zero Wolf and his men pursue Jaguar Paw into the jungle and back toward Jaguar Paw's home. Along the way, one of the raiders is killed by a black jaguar angered by Jaguar Paw. Another raider is killed when a venomous snake bites his neck. Eventually, after running all night, Jaguar Paw finds himself caught between a high waterfall and his hunters and is forced to jump. He survives and declares from the riverbank below that the raiders are now in his homelands, echoing his father's challenge to the refugees at the beginning of the film.

After listening to Jaguar Paw's challenge, Snake Ink says they should climb down after Jaguar Paw but is stabbed by Zero Wolf for his suggestion. He then commands that he and his men jump the falls as well and in shock, they all jump as well. While most make it alive, one smashes his head on the rocks below and is killed. The remaining men swim to the shore and re-start their pursuit, but soon Jaguar Paw, now camouflaged in mud, kills one raider with poison darts. He then confronts Middle Eye and bludgeons him to death with Mayan war club. It begins raining heavily which starts to flood the cave where Jaguar Paw's wife and son are trapped. As he rushes to save his family, Jaguar Paw is confronted by Zero Wolf and shot again with an arrow. As Zero Wolf advances to finish Jaguar Paw he is impaled and killed by a trap meant for hunting tapir.

Following Zero Wolf's death, the two remaining raiders chase Jaguar Paw out to a beach where they encounter Spanish ships anchored off the coast, with soldiers making their way ashore. The amazement of the raiders allows Jaguar Paw to flee. He returns into the forest to pull his wife and son out of the flooded pit where they are hiding, and where Seven has just given birth to a healthy second son. As the reunited family look out from the forest towards the Spanish galleons, Seven wonders if they should go to the strangers, Jaguar Paw tells his family to return with him to the forest. They head into the jungle in search of a new beginning.

Cast

• Any Puello as Heaven Flower
• Rudy Youngblood as Jaguar Paw
• Dalia Hernández as Seven
• Jonathan Brewer as Blunted
• Mayra Sérbulo as Young Woman
• Morris Birdyellowhead as Flint Sky
• Carlos Emilio Báez as Turtles Run
• Amílcar Ramírez as Curl Nose
• Israel Contreras as Smoke Frog
• Israel Ríos as Cocoa Leaf
• María Isabel Díaz as Mother-in-Law
• Iazúa Laríos as Sky Flower
• Raoul Trujillo as Zero Wolf
• Gerardo Taracena as Middle Eye
• Rodolfo Palacios as Snake Ink
• Ariel Galván as Hanging Moss
• Fernando Hernandez as High Priest
• Rafael Velez as Mayan King
• Bernardo Ruiz as Drunkards Four
• Ricardo Díaz Mendoza as Cut Rock
• Richard Can as Ten Peccary
• Carlos Ramos as Monkey Jaw
• Ammel Rodrigo Mendoza as Buzzard Hook
• Marco Antonio Argueta as Speaking Wind
• Aquetzali García as Oracle boy
• María Isidra Hoil as Oracle Girl
• Abel Woolrich as Laughing man
• Gilmerio DSouza as Ultimate Ekach

Production

Screenplay

Screenwriter and producer Farhad Safinia first met director Mel Gibson while working as an assistant during the post-production of The Passion of the Christ. Eventually, Gibson and Safinia found time to discuss "their mutual love of movies and what excites them about moviemaking".

We started to talk about what to do next, but we specifically spent a lot of time on the action-chase genre of filmmaking. Those conversations essentially grew into the skeleton of ('Apocalypto'). We wanted to update the chase genre by, in fact, not updating it with technology or machinery but stripping it down to its most intense form, which is a man running for his life, and at the same time getting back to something that matters to him.

— Farhad Safinia

Gibson said they wanted to "shake up the stale action-adventure genre", which he felt was dominated by CGI, stock stories and shallow characters and to create a footchase that would "feel like a car chase that just keeps turning the screws."

Gibson and Safinia were also interested in portraying and exploring an ancient culture as it existed before the arrival of the Europeans. Considering both the Aztecs and the Maya, they eventually chose the Maya for their high sophistication and their eventual decline.

The Mayas were far more interesting to us. You can choose a civilization that is bloodthirsty, or you can show the Maya civilization that was so sophisticated with an immense knowledge of medicine, science, archaeology and engineering ... but also be able to illuminate the brutal undercurrent and ritual savagery that they practised. It was a far more interesting world to explore why and what happened to them.

— Farhad Safinia

The two researched ancient Maya history, reading both creation and destruction myths, including sacred texts such as the Popul Vuh. In the audio commentary of the film's first DVD release, Safinia states that the old shaman's story (played by Espiridion Acosta Cache who is an actual modern day Maya storyteller) was modified from an authentic Mesoamerican tale that was re-translated into the Yucatec Maya language by the young Maya professor Hilario Chi Canul who also acted as a dialogue coach during production. As they researched the script, Safinia and Gibson traveled to Guatemala, Costa Rica and the Yucatán peninsula to scout filming locations and visit Maya ruins.

Striving for a degree of historical accuracy, the filmmakers employed a consultant, Richard D. Hansen, a specialist in the Maya, assistant professor of archaeology at Idaho State University, and director of the Mirador Basin Project, an effort to preserve a large swath of the Guatemalan rain forest and its Maya ruins. Gibson has said of Hansen's involvement: "Richard's enthusiasm for what he does is infectious. He was able to reassure us and make us feel secure that what we were writing had some authenticity as well as imagination."

Gibson is interested in using unfamiliar languages on film, having already used Aramaic, Latin and Hebrew in his religious blockbuster The Passion of the Christ. In Apocalypto, the dialogue is entirely in the Yucatec Maya language. Gibson explains: "I think hearing a different language allows the audience to completely suspend their own reality and get drawn into the world of the film. And more importantly, this also puts the emphasis on the cinematic visuals, which are a kind of universal language of the heart."

Casting

Mel Gibson chose a cast of actors who were from Mexico City and the Yucatán, or who were descendants of indigenous peoples of Canada and the United States. It was important for the director that "these characters have to be utterly believable as pre-Columbian Mesoamericans." Some of the youngest and oldest cast members were Maya who knew no language besides Maya and had never seen a tall building before.

Gibson explained that he wanted to cast unknown actors so that they could play certain mythic types without the audiences associating them with prior roles. "In terms of casting it, you always have many choices. You can go against type, or with type. On this one I have purposely chosen an archetypal selection, casting it right with type, because of the obscure dialect and the unfamiliar period in which the story is set." In addition to the lead actors, some scenes required as many as 700 extras.

Costumes and makeup

See also: Maya textiles

The production team consisted of a large group of make-up artists and costume designers who worked to recreate the Maya look for the large cast. Led by Aldo Signoretti, the make-up artists daily applied the required tattoos, scarification, and earlobe extension to all of the onscreen actors. According to advisor Richard D. Hansen, the choices in body make-up were based on both artistic license and fact: "I spent hours and hours going through the pottery and the images looking for tattoos. The scarification and tattooing was all researched, the inlaid jade teeth are in there, the ear spools are in there. There is a little doohickey that comes down from the ear through the nose into the septum – that was entirely their artistic innovation." An example of attention to detail is the left arm tattoo of Seven, Jaguar Paw's wife, which is a horizontal band with two dots above – the Mayan symbol for the number seven.

Simon Atherton, an English armorer and weapon-maker who worked with Gibson on Braveheart, was hired this time to research and provide the Maya weapons. Gibson let Atherton play the cross-bearing Franciscan friar who appears on a boat at the end of the film. Despite the films claims that costumes were thouroughly researched and recreated, the clothing worn in the films was not what the Maya would have worn at this time. In the film they are protrayed as wearing little clothing with heavy ornamentation while in reality typical Maya attire of this period would have included much more covering including long dyed tunics with little jade or gold ornamentation. The Maya of the Yucatan also would not have typically gone about shirtless as portrayed in the film as wearing little clothing was associated with being a prisoner or convict in Maya society.

Set design

See also: Maya architecture

Mel Gibson wanted Apocalypto to feature sets with actual buildings rather than relying on computer-generated images. Most of the step pyramids seen at the Maya city were models designed by Thomas E. Sanders. Sanders explained his approach, "We wanted to set up the Mayan world, but we were not trying to do a documentary. Visually, we wanted to go for what would have the most impact. Just as on Braveheart, you are treading the line of history and cinematography. Our job is to do a beautiful movie."

However, while many of the architectural details of Maya cities are correct, they are blended from different locations and eras, a decision Farhad Safinia said was made for aesthetic reasons. While Apocalypto is set during the post-classic period of Maya civilization, the central pyramid of the film comes from the classic period, which ended in A.D. 900. Furthermore, the temples are in the shape of those of Tikal in the central lowlands classic style but decorated with the Puuc style elements of the north west Yucatan centuries later. Richard D. Hansen comments, "There was nothing in the post-classic period that would match the size and majesty of that pyramid in the film. But Gibson … was trying to depict opulence, wealth, consumption of resources."

The set design of Apocalypto also blended elements of Maya art from different eras and locations. The mural in the arched walkway combined elements from the Maya codices, the Bonampak murals (over 700 years earlier than the film's setting), and the San Bartolo murals (some 1500 years earlier than the film's setting).

Filming

Gibson filmed Apocalypto mainly in Catemaco, San Andrés Tuxtla, and Paso de Ovejas in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The waterfall scene was filmed on a real waterfall called Salto de Eyipantla, located in San Andrés Tuxtla. Other filming by second-unit crews took place in El Petén, Guatemala, and in Great Britain. The film was originally slated for an August 4, 2006, release, but Touchstone Pictures delayed the release date to December 8, 2006, due to heavy rains and two hurricanes interfering with filming in Mexico. Principal photography ended in July 2006.

Apocalypto was shot on high-definition digital video, using the Panavision Genesis camera. During filming, Gibson and cinematographer Dean Semler employed the use of Spydercam, a suspended camera system allowing shooting from atop. This equipment was used in a scene in which Jaguar Paw leaps off a waterfall.

We had a Spydercam shot from the top of [the] 150-foot (46 m) waterfall, looking over an actor's shoulder and then plunging over the edge – literally in the waterfall. I thought we'd be doing it on film, but we put the Genesis [camera] up there in a light-weight water housing. The temperatures were beyond 100 degrees at [the] top, and about 60 degrees at the bottom, with the water and the mist. We shot two fifty-minute tapes without any problems – though we [did get] water in there once and fogged up.

A number of animals are featured in Apocalypto, including a Baird's tapir and a black jaguar. Animatronics or puppets were employed for the scenes injurious to animals.

Soundtrack

Further information: Apocalypto (soundtrack)

The soundtrack to Apocalypto was composed by James Horner in his third collaboration with director Mel Gibson. The soundtrack lacks a traditional orchestral score and instead features a large array of exotic instruments and vocals by Pakistani singer Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Distribution and marketing

While Mel Gibson financed the film through his Icon Productions, Disney signed on to distribute Apocalypto for a fee in certain markets. The publicity for the film started with a December 2005 teaser trailer that was filmed before the start of principal photography and before Rudy Youngblood was cast as Jaguar Paw. As a joke, Gibson inserted a subliminal cameo of the bearded director in a plaid shirt with a cigarette hanging from his mouth posing next to a group of dust-covered Maya. A clean-shaven Gibson also filmed a Mayan-language segment for the introduction of the 2006 Academy Awards in which he declined to host the ceremony. On September 23, 2006, Gibson pre-screened the unfinished film to two predominantly Native American audiences in the US state of Oklahoma, at the Riverwind Casino in Goldsby, owned by the Chickasaw Nation, and at Cameron University in Lawton. He also did a pre-screening in Austin, Texas, on September 24 in conjunction with one of the film's stars, Rudy Youngblood. In Los Angeles, Gibson screened Apocalypto and participated in a Q&A session for Latin Business Association and for members of the Maya community. Due to an enthusiastic response from exhibitors, Disney opened the film on more than 2,500 screens in the United States.

Themes

According to Mel Gibson, the Mayan setting of Apocalypto is "merely the backdrop" for a more universal story of exploring "civilizations and what undermines them". Although it is not directly expressed in the film, the background to the events depicted is the collapse of the Maya civilization, which the filmmakers researched before writing. According to archaeologist Michael D. Coe, "Maya civilization in the Central Area reached its full glory in the early eighth century, but it must have contained the seeds of its own destruction, for in the century and a half that followed, all its magnificent cities had fallen into decline and ultimately suffered abandonment. This was surely one of the most profound social and demographic catastrophes of all human history." Coe lists "environmental collapse" as one of the leading causes of the fall of the great empire, alongside "endemic warfare", "overpopulation", and "drought". "There is mounting evidence for massive deforestation and erosion throughout the Central Area. The Maya apocalypse, for such it was, surely had ecological roots," explains Coe. The corrosive forces of corruption are illustrated in specific scenes throughout the film. Excessive consumption can be seen in the extravagant lifestyle of the upper-class Maya, their vast wealth contrasted with the sickly, the extremely poor, and the enslaved. Environmental degradation is portrayed both in the exploitation of natural resources such as the over-mining and farming of the land, but also through the treatment of people, families and entire tribes as resources to be harvested and sold to slavery. Political corruption is seen in the leaders' manipulation, the human sacrifice on a large scale, and the slave trade. The film shows slaves being forced to create the lime stucco cement that covered their temples, an act that some historians consider a major factor in the Maya decline. One calculation estimates that it would take five tons of jungle forestry to make one ton of quicklime. Historical consultant Richard D. Hansen explains, "I found one pyramid in El Mirador that would have required nearly 650 hectares (1,600 acres) of every single available tree just to cover one building with lime stucco... Epic construction was happening... creating devastation on a huge scale"

The filmmakers intended this depiction of the Maya collapse to have relevance for contemporary society. The problems "faced by the Maya are extraordinarily similar to those faced today by our own civilization" co-writer Safinia stated during production, "especially when it comes to widespread environmental degradation, excessive consumption and political corruption". Gibson himself has stated that the film is an attempt at illustrating the parallels between a great fallen empire of the past and the great empires of today, saying "People think that modern man is so enlightened, but we're susceptible to the same forces – and we are also capable of the same heroism and transcendence." The film serves as a cultural critique – in Hansen's words, a "social statement" – sending the message that it is never a mistake to question our own assumptions about morality.

However, Gibson has also stated that he wanted the film to be hopeful rather than entirely negative. Gibson has defined the title as "a new beginning or an unveiling – a revelation"; he says "Everything has a beginning and an end, and all civilizations have operated like that". The Greek word (ἀποκαλύπτω, apokaluptō) is in fact a verb meaning "I uncover", "disclose", or "reveal". Gibson has also said a theme of the film is the exploration of primal fears.

Reception

Critical response

The film was released in the United States on December 8, 2006, to generally positive reviews from film critics. Richard Roeper and guest critic Aisha Tyler on the television show Ebert & Roeper gave it "two big thumbs up" rating. Michael Medved gave Apocalypto four stars (out of four) calling the film "an adrenaline-drenched chase movie" and "a visceral visual experience." Overall, the review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 115 out of the 179 reviews they tallied were positive for a score of 64% and a certification of "fresh"; among Top Critics, Rotten Tomatoes reported a mixed score of 58%, with 25 of 43 reviews by noted reviewers being positive.

The film was released less than six months after Gibson's 2006 DUI incident, where the director made antisemitic comments to police after being stopped on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol; the incident garnered Gibson much negative publicity and magnified concerns some had over alleged antisemitism in his previous film, The Passion of the Christ. Several key film critics alluded to the incident in their reviews of Apocalypto: In his positive review, The New York Times'' A. O. Scott commented: "say what you will about him – about his problem with booze or his problem with Jews – he is a serious filmmaker." The Boston Globe review came to a similar conclusion, noting that "Gibson may be a lunatic, but he's our lunatic, and while I wouldn't wish him behind the wheel of a car after happy hour or at a B'nai Brith function anytime, behind a camera is another matter." In a negative review, Salon.com noted "People are curious about this movie because of what might be called extra-textual reasons, because its director is an erratic and charismatic Hollywood figure who would have totally marginalized himself by now if he didn't possess a crude gift for crafting violent pop entertainment."

Apocalypto gained some passionate champions in the Hollywood community. Actor Robert Duvall called it "maybe the best movie I've seen in 25 years". Director Quentin Tarantino said, "I think it's a masterpiece. It was perhaps the best film of that year. I think it was the best artistic film of that year." Actor Edward James Olmos said, "I was totally caught off guard. It's arguably the best movie I've seen in years. I was blown away."

Box office

The film registered a wider number of viewers than Perfume and Rocky Balboa. It even displaced memorable Mexican premieres such as Titanic and Poseidon. According to polls performed by the newspaper Reforma, 80% of polled Mexicans labeled the film as "very good" or "good".

Awards

For his role as producer and director of the film, Mel Gibson was given the Trustee Award by the First Americans in the Arts organization. Gibson was also awarded the Latino Business Association's Chairman's Visionary Award for his work on Apocalypto on November 2, 2006, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, California. At the ceremony, Gibson said that the film was a "badge of honor for the Latino community." Gibson also stated that Apocalypto would help dismiss the notion that "history only began with Europeans".

Won

• Central Ohio Film Critics Association – COFCA Award for Best Cinematography (2007) – Dean Semler
• Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards – DFWFCA Award for Best Cinematography (2006) – Dean Semler
• First Americans in the Arts – FAITA Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor (2007) – Rudy Youngblood
• First Americans in the Arts – FAITA Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor (Supporting) (2007) – Morris Birdyellowhead
• Imagen Foundation – Imagen Award for Best Supporting Actor (2007) – Gerardo Taracena
• Imagen Foundation – Imagen Award for Best Supporting Actress (2007) – Dalia Hernandez
• Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA – Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing for Music in a Feature Film (2007) – Dick Bernstein (music editor), Jim Henrikson (music editor)
• Phoenix Film Critics Society – PFCS Award for Best Cinematography (2006) – Dean Semler

Nominated

• Academy Awards, USA – Oscar for Best Achievement in Makeup (2007) – Aldo Signoretti, Vittorio Sodano
• Academy Awards, USA – Oscar for Best Achievement in Sound Editing (2007) – Sean McCormack, Kami Asgar
• Academy Awards, USA – Oscar for Best Achievement in Sound Mixing (2007) – Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell, Fernando Cámara
• Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA – Saturn Award for Best Direction (2007) – Mel Gibson
• Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA – Saturn Award for Best International Film (2007)
• American Society of Cinematographers, USA – ASC Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases (2007) – Dean Semler
• BAFTA Awards – BAFTA Film Award for Best Film not in the English Language (2007) – Mel Gibson, Bruce Davey
• Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards – BFCA Award for Best Foreign Language Film (2007)
• Chicago Film Critics Association Awards – CFCA Award for Best Foreign Language Film (2006)
• Golden Globes, USA – Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film (2007)
• Hollywood Reporter Key Art Awards – Key Art Award for Best Action-Adventure Poster (2006)
• Imagen Foundation – Imagen Award for Best Picture (2007)
• Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA – Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing in a Feature Film: Dialogue and Automated Dialogue Replacement (2007) – Sean McCormack (supervising sound editor), Kami Asgar (supervising sound editor), Scott G.G. Haller (supervising dialogue editor), Jessica Gallavan (supervising ADR editor), Lisa J. Levine (supervising ADR editor), Linda Folk (supervising ADR editor)
• Online Film Critics Society Awards – OFCS Award for Best Cinematography (2007) – Dean Semler
• Satellite Awards – Satellite Award for Best Motion Picture, Foreign Language (2006)
• St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Awards – Award for Best Foreign Language Film (2006)

Controversies

Representation of the Maya

William Booth of The Washington Post wrote that the film depicts the Maya as a "super-cruel, psycho-sadistic society on the skids, a ghoulscape engaged in widespread slavery, reckless sewage treatment and bad rave dancing, with a real lust for human blood." Just prior to its release, Apocalypto was criticized by activists in Guatemala, including Lucio Yaxon, who charged that the trailer depicts Maya as savages. In her review of the film, anthropologist Traci Ardren wrote that Apocalypto was biased because "no mention is made of the achievements in science and art, the profound spirituality and connection to agricultural cycles, or the engineering feats of Maya cities". Apocalypto also sparked a strong condemnation from art history professor Julia Guernsey, a Mesoamerican specialist, who said, "I think it's despicable. It's offensive to Maya people. It's offensive to those of us who try to teach cultural sensitivity and alternative world views that might not match our own 21st-century Western ones but are nonetheless valid."

Other writers felt that Gibson's film was more truthful about the Maya than other representations. One Mexican reporter, Juan E. Pardinas, wrote that "this historical interpretation bears some resemblances with reality […]. Mel Gibson's characters are more similar to the Mayas of the Bonampak's murals than the ones that appear in the Mexican school textbooks." "The first researchers tried to make a distinction between the 'peaceful' Maya and the 'brutal' cultures of central Mexico", David Stuart wrote in a 2003 article. "They even tried to say human sacrifice was rare among the Maya." But in carvings and mural paintings, Stuart said: "we have now found more and greater similarities between the Aztecs and Mayas – including a Maya ceremony in which a grotesquely costumed priest is shown pulling the entrails from a bound and apparently living sacrificial victim".

Richard D. Hansen, who was a historical consultant on the film, stated that the impact the film will have on Maya archaeology will be beneficial: "It is a wonderful opportunity to focus world attention on the ancient Maya and to realize the role they played in world history." However, in an interview with the Washington Post, Hansen conceded the film "give[s] the feeling they're a sadistic lot," and said, "I'm a little apprehensive about how the contemporary Maya will take it."

Human sacrifice

Apocalypto has been criticized for portraying a type of human sacrifice which was more typical of the Aztecs than of the Maya. Archaeologist Lisa Lucero said, "the classic Maya really didn't go in for mass sacrifice. That was the Aztecs." Anthropology professor Karl Taube argued that, "We know the Aztecs did that level of killing. Their accounts speak of 20,000." According to the film's technical advisor, the film was meant to describe the post-classic period of the Maya when fiercer influences like the Toltecs and Aztecs arrived. According to Hansen, "We know warfare was going on. The Postclassic center of Tulum is a walled city; these sites had to be in defensive positions. There was tremendous Aztec influence by this time. The Aztecs were clearly ruthless in their conquest and pursuit of sacrificial victims, a practice that spilled over into some of the Maya areas." Anthropology professor Stephen Houston made the criticism that sacrifice victims were more likely to be royalty and elites rather than common forest dwellers, as shown in Apocalypto. In contrast, Associate Professor William R. Fowler states that for major favors, worshippers "offered the gods human sacrifice, usually children, slaves, or prisoners of war". Anthropology professor Karl Taube criticized the film's apparent depiction of widespread slavery, saying, "We have no evidence of large numbers of slaves." Another disputed scene, when Jaguar Paw and the rest of captives are used as target practice, was acknowledged by the filmmakers to be invented as a plot device for igniting the chase sequence. Some anthropologists objected to the presence of a huge pit filled with rotting corpses near their fields of the Maya. Richard D. Hansen acknowledges that this is "conjecture", saying that "all [Gibson was] trying to do there is express the horror of it".

The Washington Post reported that the famous Bonampak murals were digitally altered to show a warrior holding a dripping human heart, which is not present in the original.

Arrival of the Spaniards

According to the DVD commentary track by Mel Gibson and Farhad Safinia, the ending of the film was meant to depict the first contact between the Spaniards and Mayas that took place in 1502 during the fourth voyage of Christopher Columbus.

The thematic meaning of the arrival of the Europeans is a subject of disagreement. Traci Ardren wrote that the Spanish arrivals were Christian missionaries and that the film had a "blatantly colonial message that the Mayas needed saving because they were "rotten at the core". According to Ardren, the Gibson film "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 they needed, rescue. This same idea was used for 500 years to justify the subjugation of Maya people". On the other hand, David van Biema questions whether the Spaniards are portrayed as saviors of the Mayas, since they are depicted ominously and Jaguar Paw decides to return to the woods. This view is supported by the reference of the Oracle Girl to those who would "Scratch out the earth. Scratch you out. And end your world." However, recalling the opening quote to the film ("A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within"), professors David Stuart and Stephen Houston have written the implication is that the Maya are so evil that they were "a civilization...that deserves to die."

Lawsuits

In early 2007 filmmaker Mel Gibson, his production company Icon Productions, and the film's distributor Buena Vista (Disney) were sued by Mexican filmmaker Juan Catlett who claims that Gibson used scenes from his 1991 film Return to Aztlan in Apocalypto and that the films shared similar plotlines.

External links

• Official website
• Apocalypto at IMDb
• Apocalypto at AllMovie
• Apocalypto at Rotten Tomatoes
• Apocalypto at Metacritic
• Apocalypto at Box Office Mojo