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A+ |
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| Story: |
A+ |
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| Acting: |
A+ |
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| Direction: |
A+ |
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| Visuals: |
A+ |
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Maya culture, effectively used as comment
by scanlon11 (movies profile)
Jul 6, 2007
67
of
73 people found this review helpful
With Maya culture as my principle research area, I was very intrigued by this film. The view into a civilization that fractured itself into separate mini-kindoms run prinicipally by family rights was beautifull captured in the separate "tribe cultures" we see in the film. For those who may question that one group may not have ever experienced the "Maya pyramids" just next door, visit New York on any given day and ask someone from the South side to tell you how to get anywhere on the North side. I am always amazed at how fractured our own society has become, and Mel has captured that reality with brutal honesty on the screen.
There are many questions still left in the Maya history chain, and those who want to attribute human sacrifice and cannibalism to only the Aztec have not read their Mesoamerican history very well. The fact remains that surprising similarities in cultural habits sprang up in random areas, with obvious influence from vastly different locations. Some groups traveled, others did not. Our Western minds can only see history through our own historical linkage, and we have tried to superimpose that on the Mesoamerican culture for centuries.
The film chose to take moments we know about to recreate an event in one cultural group's life. No one can say the writers or director are further away from any historical recreation any film has produced, since we all only see history as we interpret it.
I honestly felt transported to Mel's vision of this society, and the reality of that transportation was poignantly underlined when "my culture" arrived at the end. Does anyone have the right to superimpose their own culture (or historical view) over another's. The film asks important questions and draws important parallels even in its own story. Jaguar Paw may have been shocked at the ritualistic gutting of humans in the city life into which he was so violently thrown, but his character was the first on screen to gut and hold aloft the vital organs of another creature.
The layering of messages in this film is simplistic and yet wickedly deep at the same time. I have not walked out of a film in a long time and thought so much about what I just saw. And then as I read the variety of comments on this site, I was transported back to the message of the film and the jarring comments it made from various perspectives of its own characters.
Comments herein pass judgement on many aspects of Maya culture. How could the city dwellers not have known the eclipse was coming? Did they not watch the film and see the faces of the culture's leaders who had been waiting for the very event to take place so they could "show their power" to the people. The entire event was set that very day for that very event for the explicit effect in had on the people. Anyone who knows the Mesoamerican history knows that knowledge of the cosmos was perhaps the strongest power the leaders had over its own common people.
I am still wrestling with the film and I will probably go back to experience it a few more times before I purchase it for my Mesoamerican collection. Its visual choices are intriguing and masterfully achieved, and I recognize it for what it is...another attempt at deciphering a very, very complex Maya civilization.
Just a few pointers for understanding where comments herein might not be as historically accurate in their own understanding: Mayan with an "n" ONLY refers to the language. The adjective is Maya. Writers who know the difference, know the culture. And Mesoamerican cultures are never addressed as "tribes". With this in mind, many of the comments herein will show their true sense of history...or not. |
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