Apocalypto () is a 2006 epic historical action-adventure film produced and directed by Mel Gibson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Farhad Safinia. The film features a cast of Indigenous and Mexican actors consisting of Rudy Youngblood, Raoul Trujillo, Mayra Sérbulo, Dalia Hernández, Gerardo Taracena, Jonathan Brewer, Rodolfo Palacios, Bernardo Ruiz Juarez, Ammel Rodrigo Mendoza, Ricardo Diaz Mendoza, and Israel Contreras. Set in either Yucatán or Guatemala during the year 1502, Apocalypto portrays the hero's journey of a young man named Jaguar Paw, a late Mesoamerican hunter and his fellow tribesmen who are captured by an invading force. After a raid on their village, they are brought on a perilous journey to a Maya city for human sacrifice at a time when the Maya civilization is in decline.
Principal photography took place in Mexico from November 21, 2005 to July 2006. All dialogue is in a modern approximation of the ancient language of the setting, and the Indigenous Yucatec Mayan language is spoken with subtitles, which sometimes refer to the language as Mayan.
Apocalypto was distributed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution in North America and Icon Film Distribution in the United Kingdom and Australia. The film was released on December 8, 2006 and was a box office success, grossing over $120 million worldwide, and received generally positive reviews, with critics praising Gibson's direction, Dean Semler's cinematography, and the performances of the cast, though the portrayal of Maya civilization and perceived historical inaccuracies were criticized.
Plot While hunting in the Mesoamerican rainforest, Jaguar Paw, his father Flint Sky, and their fellow tribesmen encounter a group of refugees fleeing from war and devastation. Returning to their village, Flint Sky notes that the refugees are sick with fear and urges Jaguar Paw to never allow the fear to infect him. Later that night, the tribe gathers around an elder who tells a prophetic story about a being who is consumed by an emptiness that cannot be satisfied, despite having all the gifts of the world offered to him. The being will continue blindly taking until there is nothing left to take and the world is no more.
The next morning, the village is attacked by Maya raiders led by Zero Wolf. Many tribespeople are killed, including Flint Sky who dies at the hands of the sadistic Middle Eye. Before being captured, Jaguar Paw manages to hide his pregnant wife Seven and their young son Turtles Run in an empty well. One of the raiders notices the rope leading down to the well and cuts it. Jaguar Paw attempts to kill Middle Eye out of rage for his father's death, but is halted. Middle Eye gives Jaguar Paw the nickname "Almost". In the aftermath, the raiders force the surviving adults on a long march through the jungle, leaving the children to fend for themselves. Seven and Turtles Run remain trapped in the well.
Along the way, the raiders and their captives encounter razed forests and vast fields of failed maize crops, alongside villages decimated by an unknown disease. They then encounter an infected little girl who prophesies the end of the Maya world."You are afraid of me, and rightly so, for all you vile beings. Would you know how you will die? The sacred time is near. Beware the darkness of the day. Beware the man who leads the jaguar. Watch him rise from the mud and dust, for he to whom he is leading you will blot out the sky and scratch the earth. He will sweep you away and end your world. He is with us now. The day will be as the night, and the jaguar man will lead you to the end."
Arriving in the city, the captives are divided; the women are sold into slavery while the men are escorted to the top of a pyramid where they are brutally sacrificed to appease the gods. As Jaguar Paw is laid out on the altar, a solar eclipse occurs. Taking the event as an omen that the gods are satisfied, the Mayans spare the remaining captives. However, the raiders use them for target practice, offering them freedom if they can dodge the spears thrown at them. The first pair of runners, including Jaguar Paw's friend Blunted, are easily struck down. Jaguar Paw follows thereafter, and is also wounded. Zero Wolf's son Cut Rock approaches them to deliver the killing blow. The mortally wounded Blunted distracts Cut Rock, allowing Jaguar Paw to kill him and escape.
An enraged Zero Wolf leads Middle Eye and seven other men to hunt down Jaguar Paw. Reaching the jungle, Jaguar Paw remembers his father's words not to give in to fear, and challenges Zero Wolf to hunt him. Jaguar Paw uses his knowledge of the jungle to lure his pursuers to their deaths (one is killed by a black jaguar; a second is killed by a rattlesnake; a third is killed by Zero Wolf for disobeying an order; a fourth smashes his head on a rock after jumping down a waterfall; a fifth is poisoned by Jaguar Paw). Among those he kills himself are Middle Eye, whom he bludgeons with a stone hatchet, and Zero Wolf, whom he lures into a spike trap made for tapir hunts. The last two raiders continue to pursue Jaguar Paw on the outskirts of his village.
Reaching the shores amidst a heavy downpour, all three are stunned to witness the arrival of Spanish conquistadors. While the two raiders approach the foreigners, Jaguar Paw races back to his village. He manages to rescue his family from the well and is overjoyed to see Seven has safely given birth during the ordeal. After watching the ships, Jaguar Paw's family depart to start a new life in the forest, away from both the Mayans and the Spanish.
Cast
Production
Screenplay
Screenwriter and co-producer Farhad Safinia first met 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".
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 foot chase 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 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, a modern-day Maya storyteller) was modified from an authentic Mesoamerican tale that was re-translated by Hilario Chi Canul, a professor of Maya, into the Yucatec Maya language for the film. He also served 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 and assistant professor of archaeology at Idaho State University. As director of the Mirador Basin Project, he works 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 decided that all the dialogue would be in the Yucatec Maya language. Gibson explained: 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.
Costumes and makeup
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 extensions to all of the on-screen 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.
Simon Atherton, an English armorer and weapon-maker who worked with Gibson on Braveheart, was hired to research and provide reconstructions of Maya weapons. Atherton also has a cameo as the cross-bearing Franciscan friar who appears on a Spanish ship at the end of the film.
Set design
Mel Gibson wanted Apocalypto to feature sets with 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 the Mayan 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 terminal Postclassic period of Mayan civilization, the film's central pyramid is a structure built in the classic period, six hundred years earlier. It is a later Mayan city built around a pyramid that had been erected centuries before, examples of which are found in places such as the Postclassic sites of Muyil, Coba, and others in Quintana Roo, Mexico. 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 northwest Yucatán 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 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 at Eyipantla Falls, located in San Andrés Tuxtla. Other filming by second-unit crews took place in El Petén, Guatemala. 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 Spydercam, a suspended camera system allowing shooting from above. This equipment was used in a scene in which Jaguar Paw leaps off a waterfall.
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.
Music
The music to Apocalypto was composed by James Horner in his third collaboration with director Mel Gibson. The non-traditional score features a large array of exotic instruments and vocals by Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan.