You first have to take a quick look at his acting – extremely admirable, and he has turned up in some decent films. ‘Mad Max’ and ‘The Road Warrior’, early on in his career, feature Mel as a lone wolf trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic scenario. His family, a wife and child are killed and while Mel tries to stay alive, he also means to exact revenge. It’s the peaceful man turned to violence by circumstance and the place to which he goes while doing this. Remember this theme – it will figure in again and again. From there, he had good roles in very decent films such as, ‘Gallipoli’, ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’ and ‘Mrs. Soffel’, among others. His portrayal of Hamlet in Zefferelli’s version was good. No Kenneth Branagh, his approach seemed more Hamlet as everyman. He didn’t deliver Shakespeare in the classic way but I found something engaging in his Hamlet. He went on to direct: ‘Braveheart’, ‘The Passion of the Christ’ and now ‘Apocalypto’.

‘Braveheart’, was his portrayal of the Scottish icon, William Wallace, who challenged and fought the English in the 1300s for Scottish independence from England. Shot through with historical inaccuracies and cornball speechifying (the rant preceding the battle of Stirling, for starters), it was still a spectacle and a colorful one, to boot. Who cares if the Scots didn’t actually start wearing kilts til the 1700s – the extras and sets were dirty, gritty and real looking, probably closest to how things really must’ve looked. And the battle scenes, to my mind, were some of the best on film. Just watch the buildup to Stirling on a big screen with the sound cranked up. The suspense as the Brits charge, in slow motion going to real-time and then the clash of armies is a stunner.

Since I did not see, ‘The Passion of the Christ’, I can’t really comment on it. I was initially intrigued by the fact that he had done it in Aramaic and Latin to try and capture the real feel of the time. I was also knocked out by Scorcese’s, ‘Last Temptation of Christ’, so I thought perhaps this might be an extension of where that was going. After hearing so much about the very real seeming violence (45 minutes of just beating Jesus), I found myself too squeamish to go see it. This brings me to his current film, ‘Apocalypto’, which is set in the waning period of the Mayan civilization.

Jaguar Paw, played by an unknown newcomer, Rudy Youngblood, is a member of a Central American tribe, living in the forest and in relative harmony with the rest of his group, which includes a pregnant wife and son. A band of marauding Maya from one of the urban centers comes raiding through the jungle in search of captives to use as live sacrifices to please the gods. Jaguar Paw’s village is sacked and torched with most of the inhabitants either killed or captured and led away. In the chaos of the fight, Jaguar Paw manages to stash his wife and son safely down a well but this has its limitations as the tropical rains begin to fall.

The captives survive an arduous trip to the city only to be prepared for sacrifice. Somehow, Jaguar Paw manages to avoid his own demise for the moment and manages to escape, trying to get back to his family. An adrenaline fueled run through the jungle ensues, chased by the same band of Mayan warriors who captured him initially, now with a real grudge.

This is a stunning looking film and it is here that I find what I like in certain Gibson movies. Mel has a visual strength, and a desire for some semblance of realism. The jungle forest setting was shot outside Catemaco, Mexico, which is one of the last surviving rainforests in the region and the location of the Mayan city built for the film was near the city of Veracruz, Mexico. The urban scenes were stellar, the townsfolk were tattooed, pierced and made up in spectacular fashion and the costumes were perfect. ‘Apocalypto’, I might add, was done completely in Yucatec Maya, the ancient language, with English subtitles.

Gibson also has a great feel for action sequence and each one, from the jungle fight scenes to the sacrifices at the top of the pyramid are just as they need to be. First you see the captives being led through the city with the townsfolk swarming around painting them blue, that being the custom for intended sacrificial victims. Then the masked and feathered high priests chanting as they prepare to carve open the chest of one such victim and rip out his heart. There is an overhead shot, as if from a priest’s eye view looking down on the victim, as he is about to go under and the look of sheer terror on his face is chilling. These are finished by beheadings, at which point the camera pulls back to show from a distance, a head rolling down the hundreds of steps of the pyramid. There is also something captured on the faces of the jaded urbanites – a kind of decadence that seems to hearken the decline of this civilization, probably not unlike ancient Rome, before it too, collapsed.

My one quibble is that as long as Mel was delving into the epic Mayan civilization, not more was done with it. It was a rich period with its art, customs, math/science and spiritualism, and this could’ve made for an outstanding film, the likes of which has not yet been explored. The other thing – and this is something that I’ve accepted about Mel – is that he essentially continues to make the same film over and over again. As mentioned before, the hero as peaceful citizen minding his own business when evil and violence intrude, forcing him to confront his own capacity for bloodlust and mayhem. You see this from ‘Mad Max’, through his ‘Lethal Weapon’ series, ‘Braveheart’, ‘The Patriot’ and in 2006, ‘Apocalypto’.

I have to confess that while I should’ve known better, I had higher expectations for ‘Apocalypto’, considering the period, setting and subject matter, and experienced a brief moment of disappointment during the film. After reflecting on what I’ve just laid out about Mel, I realized how it all ultimately fit and focused on his strengths. It’s in this frame of mind, and with slightly modified expectation, that I plan to go see it again, for the spectacle and excitement of it all.

Marc Goldin currently lives in Chicago, with three cats, each one more long-haired than the last. Interests have ranged from medieval monasticism to discontinued stations on the London Underground – literary likes too diverse (some would say schizo) to list here although the last several years have been witness to an intimacy with Scottish and Irish literature. American Southern and Beat era lit also account for some of the ‘missing years’. Music tastes run the gamut from Cuban Danzon to Ska (all three waves but having a specific attachment to the second, two-tone period) to the Tuvan throat singers. Has written book reviews for a now defunct Irish literature site and has several short stories in various stages of development. Mad for black and white photography and aspires to someday have a complete collection of photos documenting every close in the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh. Works in the IT dept. of a French company in the current political climate. In football, supports Chelsea, Hibs, and for the sake of employment security, Marseille. For more articles and reviews by Marc on The New Review, click here or to read Marc's story, 'Plastic Paddy' on the Showcase, click here.

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.