Apocalypto

Watching a movie at home can always end up sleeping on the couch for me.

There are many many times, as frequent as 8 out of 10, I couldn't stay awake before the movie half ends. Not to say 80% of the movies I watched are bored, but they simply not pinching my nerves to keep me awake.

TV programs at last Saturday night sucks again. As usual, KS simply picked 1 pirated DVD that he bought and turned it on. I have no high expectation on the movie he played, I didn't even ask what movie was that? I was tired, and I thought I would have slept on the couch very fast, again.

The movie has no opening credits and begins with a quotation...

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it is destroyed from within" - W.Durant

In ancient Mayan civilization, a peaceful tribe is brutally attacked by warriors seeking slaves and human beings for sacrifice for their gods. Jaguar Paw hides his pregnant wife and his son in a deep hole nearby their tribe and is captured while fighting with his people. An eclipse spares his life from the sacrifice and later he has to fight to survive and save his beloved family.

Jaguar Paw and his father, Flint Sky


To my surprise, even though the whole movie is conducted in foreign language and we could only get the meaning by chasing the subtitles, I didn't close my eyes even for a second through out the 2.5 hours show time.

This compelling action movie with not only adrenaline, but also brains and heart. Its bizarre and fascinating anthropological backdrop, fast paced old fashioned struggle between good guys and bad guys is really something extraordinary to me. The movie does have a lot of violence. Indeed, it's very brutally violence. But the violence is woven into a story with the characters we care about.

I'm not a Mayan scholar, I don't know much about the famous Mayan civilization. From the internet, I get to know that :-

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. -Michael Coe, The Maya

This movie "Apocalypto" didn't convey heavy information about ancient Mayan civilization in depth. In view of the simple storyline, don't expect to get to know much about Maya people after finish watching the movie. To a simple minded audience like me, the moral behind the movie is :-

1. True fear is the fear "when the end comes, not everyone is ready to go."

2. Don't simply run away from fears, but stop for a while and use the brain to think of ways to fight back.

3. This kind of movie will always keep me awake. Bravo Mel Gibson.