Billy Cox
17th November 2007, 12:26 AM (00:26)
As director of this film, Mel Gibson shows his unconventional view of history - one which I happen to resonate with. This movie is set in Central America with no cues for the time period until near the end.
Gibson skillfully skewers the notion of the noble savage and portrays the utter moral bankruptcy embraced by the Mayan civilization. The quote at the beginning of the movie sets the framework for the entire thesis of the movie.
"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."
The thesis of the film holds that Central American tribes had so completely depleted themselves by means of ethnic cleansing and human sacrifice that they were unable to mount a reasonable resistance to European invaders. This idea flies directly in the face of the idea that European 'explorers' encountered and subsequently destroyed an idyllic, peaceful civilization.
As one might expect, there is quite a lot of violence in this film. This is a far cry from the old Westerns where someone gets shot, falls down - no blood, no screams of agony. The modes of death portrayed would be commonplace in a slaughterhouse, except that most of the 'livestock' in this film are humans.
One could perhaps reason that the Europeans conquered the New World not because of moral superiority, but rather because their moral bankruptcy was not fundamentally incompatible with their own survival. The 'Alien' movies presented a slightly different angle on the same theme. The alien monsters were cold-blooded killers, but what gave them an edge over humans was that (unlike humans) they didn't kill each other just to gain advantage or make a buck.
Gibson skillfully skewers the notion of the noble savage and portrays the utter moral bankruptcy embraced by the Mayan civilization. The quote at the beginning of the movie sets the framework for the entire thesis of the movie.
"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."
The thesis of the film holds that Central American tribes had so completely depleted themselves by means of ethnic cleansing and human sacrifice that they were unable to mount a reasonable resistance to European invaders. This idea flies directly in the face of the idea that European 'explorers' encountered and subsequently destroyed an idyllic, peaceful civilization.
As one might expect, there is quite a lot of violence in this film. This is a far cry from the old Westerns where someone gets shot, falls down - no blood, no screams of agony. The modes of death portrayed would be commonplace in a slaughterhouse, except that most of the 'livestock' in this film are humans.
One could perhaps reason that the Europeans conquered the New World not because of moral superiority, but rather because their moral bankruptcy was not fundamentally incompatible with their own survival. The 'Alien' movies presented a slightly different angle on the same theme. The alien monsters were cold-blooded killers, but what gave them an edge over humans was that (unlike humans) they didn't kill each other just to gain advantage or make a buck.